Gone are the days when St. Louis cuisine meant a kitschy set of local favorites or a mountain of overcooked pasta. The local restaurant scene is white-hot, and these days you can get just about anything you want at just about any time of day, from great Korean barbecue to ramen to sushi to feijoada.

However, the trailblazers that put our city on the map continue to define the dining landscape, remaining relevant even in a business notorious for change. While they vary in both age and level of formality, these places all have two things in common: They’ve been good places to eat out for years, and they remain good today.

-- By Cheryl Baehr