During our trip last week to St. Louis, one of our best finds is The Map Room in the Benton Park neighborhood. We came across this place through a search for desserts on Yelp! For once, I was glad that Ethiopian restaurants don't serve desserts, and to please my sweet tooth, we ended up in this quaint place. The Map Room is special in so many ways - their extensive yet inexpensive menu offers a range of pastries (all made by local small businesses), coffees ~ that you can spike with your favorite liqueur, and alcoholic drinks.
Michelle, the owner is so friendly and full of contagious enthusiasm. She has converted an old meat factory - which you cannot even guess unless you pay attention to the pictures or talk to her - into a wonderful place that we ended up visiting three times in 4 days! The theme reflects the name and has a charming international flair to it ~ music from different countries on different days of the week, international movies on Saturday nights in the courtyard, and their drink selection is also based on this theme. Michelle is hoping to have their pastries reigned in to reflect country specials soon.
They have a variety of games and Shankar and I ended up playing cards while sharing some apple Sangria.
The Caribbean Mango Pie was seasonal and I was so happy to have the last piece of the day! The fancy chocolate pastry is actually chocolate ganache on an almond macaroon, dipped in milk chocolate. (There was also a dark-chocolate version of this). I cannot get enough of this little delight. We even brought some home, along with a couple of Budapest torte. The next day, we also played scrabble while enjoying pear sangria and a carrot cup cake. If I lived in St. Louis, you know where to find me!
