The Pandemic Hasn’t Stopped this Food Critic from Writing About St. Louis’ Food Scene
Photo by Trenton Almgren-Davis
On Friday, March 13, Cheryl Baehr ventured out to sample a new St. Louis restaurant as food critic of the Riverfront Times (RFT), a weekly alternative newspaper where she had worked for seven years.
By Monday, as the COVID-19 pandemic worsened, she reconsidered publishing her weekly review. “I call it the review that never was,” she jokes.
The following day, Baehr was a casualty of a layoff that impacted most of the paper’s editorial staff. She has since been rehired and continues to write about St. Louis’ diverse food scene.
“I did not grow up knowing about food,” admits Baehr, “but I kind of had an inkling that what I was eating was terrible.” During her freshman year of college, she stumbled into the world of fine dining as a server assistant at Nantucket Cove, an upscale seafood restaurant. There, Baehr learned about food and wine, while developing a strong camaraderie with her co-workers.
Majoring in political science and philosophy at the University of Missouri–St. Louis, Baehr assumed she would leave the restaurant scene behind while pursuing a legal career. Before applying to law school, she worked for an attorney to confirm that she actually enjoyed the work. She didn’t.
Still compelled to get a “real job,” Baehr moved to Denver to pursue a graduate degree in international studies. A student by day, she waited tables at night. “Even when I left my last shift and never wanted to wait tables again, something told me I was not fully going to leave restaurants behind,” she says.
Next, Baehr relocated to Washington, D.C., securing a job as a president management fellow at the International Trade Administration with the U.S. Department of Commerce. “I absolutely hated it,” she admits, again feeling stifled by a desk job. Baehr moved back to St. Louis without a plan for her next career move, but a serendipitous scroll through Facebook led to her dream job as she noticed and responded to a job posting for a food critic at the RFT.
Acing the interview process, Baehr joined the RFT staff in 2013, a work environment she describes as “an irreverent atmosphere filled with outstanding journalists.” Baehr enjoyed creative freedom as she reviewed one restaurant per week, covering a 40-mile radius of eateries ranging from those helmed by well-known chefs to much lesser-known establishments.
Baehr and her daughter, Coretta. Photo by Carolyn Slonim.
Two to three times a week, Baehr anonymously visited a restaurant, often accompanied by her infant daughter, husband and family friends to blend in with the average diner. “It’s easy to be incognito when you’re a mom,” she describes. “I didn’t fit the stereotype of a middle-aged man in a velvet blazer.”
Though the job was a perfect fit, eating out often proved more difficult than she expected. “At first I thought I was going to love the food—and I did,” says Baehr. “But the novelty wore off in about a year. You tell people this and they always look at you like you’re crazy, but going out to eat several times a week actually gets tiring.”
As she gained experience and confidence in the role, Baehr shifted her focus from the food to the people behind the meals. Moved by the personal stories of those working in the food industry, she was compelled to share their journeys. “Most people believed that food was in their soul for their entire life and they were expressing themselves as artists,” she says.
In particular, Baehr enjoyed highlighting immigrant-owned businesses, inspired by one of her favorite restaurants: Café Natasha. A regular customer since her college years, Baehr befriended the Iranian-immigrant owners, the Bahrami family. While writing about their Persian cuisine, Baehr also told the family’s story and, through the years, she continued to highlight stories of immigrants sharing their native foods.
Baehr dined with Food Writer Ruth Reichl, one of her role models, at Herbie’s in St. Louis.
Though Baehr’s steady stream of restaurant reviews ended abruptly in March, her loyalty to restaurateurs and the St. Louis food scene endures.
Now, she continues to write about the food industry for the RFT and other area publications. And she’s expanded her storytelling purview to include writing about sexual assault allegations, an experience she describes as humbling.
In the absence of restaurant openings, Baehr has had time to consider other approaches to writing about food. Her eclectic interests range from the history of barbecue in St. Louis to the fact that Ho Chi Minh worked as a pastry chef in France following World War I. She hopes to delve further into these topics to learn more about food in a historical context and offer her audience a new perspective. “It’s been nice to shake things up a little bit to see what other opportunities are out there,” she says.