"Tara and Michael Gallina, veterans of Dan Barber’s Blue Hill at Stone Barns, came to St. Louis with a staggering amount of dining and hospitality experience. At its most basic, their restaurant Vicia celebrates vegetables, the land they’re grown in, and the farmers who grow them, in a space that’s cool, timeless, and clean, like a freshly pressed white linen shirt. At the seasonal outdoor Vicia Wine Garden, diners scan QR codes to order early evening snacks of oysters, olives, crudite, and pimento cheese to pair with the award-winning wine list. Inside the formal dining room, the Gallinas put avant-garde preparations of vegetables center stage, like carrots cooked in beef fat or chicken-fried oyster mushrooms with lovage, buttermilk, and kohlrabi. Supporting acts come from meats cooked on the wood-fired grill and items like peekytoe crab bucatini. For one of the best fine dining values in the city, go for the three-course, family-style prix fixe." - Holly Fann, Joel Crespo
