The Mud House Profile

4:59 PM

Roaster: The Mud House features roasters from all over the country for its drip coffee and uses Blueprint’s Penrose for espresso.
Opened: Came under the current ownership in 2009.
Drinks Menu: A nice mix of traditional and trendy. You can get a gibraltar or traditional espresso macchiato, or for something on the sweeter side, order a lavendar or rosemary and honey latte made with housemade syrups.
Food Menu: Full kitchen with creative options for breakfast and lunch. There are signature items that you won’t find anywhere else. You can also order pastries made in-house.
Espresso Machine: Bright red, manual Simonelli
Brew Options: A decent amount of variety for your caffeine fix. They offer cold brew prepared on a Kyoto dripper, hand-brew made with a V60, and batch-brew coffee. For non-coffee options, Mud House serves Retailer Tea, a Saint-Louis-based company.
Location: Cherokee Street
Rating: 4 out of 5 (The food menu bumps up the score.)
Specialty drinks: Cold brew and tonic. I love this mocktail, especially when prepared with bright coffees. People either love or hate this drink, so I rarely find it on menus. But, if you like tonic water, this is a refreshing summer beverage.
Review:
                The food alone would bring me to The Mud House, but add to that locally roasted espresso that’s consistently made (fairly) well, and you’ve got one of my favorite weekend spots. I say just the weekends because Cherokee Street is a bit of a drive from my apartment. If I lived on Cherokee, my wallet and waistline would be in trouble.
                The Mud House fits right in on Cherokee’s antique row, a strip of vintage shops and boutiques. The aged brick walls are covered in old typewriters, bright paintings and a stuffed deer head, among other odd decorations. There is almost always a line to the door, if not onto the sidewalk, and the dining room is usually packed. When the weather is nice, the patio out back is the place to be. It has a secret-garden vibe with crawling vines and cobblestones.
                I almost always order the Breslin, made with curried lentils and poached eggs. Mud House also makes a wonderful goat cheese and apricot chutney sandwich, biscuits and gravy, and Dat Hash, which changes up daily. There are a number of vegetarian and vegan options, as well as tasty pastries that change up from week to week.
                The drinks are good, but not the best. The milk is almost always prepared well, but the espresso is very bright, so the flavor often reminds me of green pepper or grass. I'm not sure if the sharp, often harsh flavor is the way Mud House pulls the shots or Blue Print's very light roasting style. I've experienced a similar harshness with the Penrose elsewhere and even in Blue Print, so my guess is it's more about the beans than the barista. Still, the espresso macchiato is better than what you would find at most restaurants because the baristas know what they're doing. The food is what puts The Mud House over the top and makes it one of my favorite brunch spots.

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