Fresh Gatherings Restaurant Brings Organic Fare to Saint Louis University’s Cafeteria Crowd

1. Choose between nine entries -- many vegetarian -- made or supervised by a chef whose specialty is Tuscan and southern French cuisine.


2. Sample breads prepared by a baking and pastry chef hired to teach nutrition and dietetics students.


3. Learn about and financially support local farmers responsible for the vegetables, herbs and chevre cheese featured in the eggplant stack.


4. Spend between $3 and $6.


5. All of the above.

The correct answer is E.

Welcome to Fresh Gatherings, a restaurant in Saint Louis University’s Health Sciences Center featuring locally grown food, run by the University’s department of nutrition and dietetics.

Managed by a gourmet chef, the restaurant is open for continental breakfast from 8 to 11 a.m. and for lunch from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.

It sells dinners to-go that often are prepared by students during cooking classes, and this year will become a food lab where nutrition and dietetics students who are interested in earning their culinary arts credential will do internships. Hopefully, one day, Fresh Gatherings even will contain a glassed-in, “watch them work” bakery where students prepare breads and pastries that are sold in the restaurant.

“Incorporating the Fresh Gatherings cafeteria into our classroom experience allows us to give life to our sustainable food system curricular thread,” says Mildred Mattfeldt-Beman, Ph.D., department chair of nutrition and dietetics.

Sustainable food system?

“In the old days, we called it organic farming. It goes beyond a label and includes a sense of stewardship for the land and natural resources. We buy locally from farmers who are committed to building the richness of the soil, not depleting it. We support people in the area who are trying to stay on their farms. It’s the right thing to do,” Mattfeldt-Beman says.

“It’s also the smart thing to do. For our restaurant customers, it means we buy crops at the peak of their freshness and enjoy them when they taste best. It gives us the chance to serve nutritious foods that taste great, too.”

The manager of Fresh Gatherings is Eddie Neill, a Saint Louis University alum whose previous restaurant experience includes stints as partner and chef at Café Provençal in Kirkwood, Chez Leon, Jazz at the Bistro and Malmaison.

“I used to spend my winters in southern France, tasting wines and learning the latest recipes to bring back to my restaurants,” Neill says. “This year I traded the experience to get Fresh Gatherings up and running.”

Neill is joined by Todd Parkhurst, a former executive pastry chef who has worked in country clubs, restaurants and hotels in Indianapolis, Michigan and Washington, D.C., and now is an instructor at SLU.

The breads and pastries that Parkhurst teaches nutrition and dietetics students to bake are sold in Fresh Gatherings during continental breakfast and lunch. Customers also can purchase muffins or bread to take home.

Stephanie Russell, also a chef at Fresh Gatherings, caters private parties and had been a chef at Whole Foods.

Neill and Mattfeldt-Beman have negotiated agreements with local suppliers including a couple of women in North St. Louis who raise organic chickens, and farmers throughout the state who use sustainable growing practices to produce tomatoes, black beans, herbs, mushrooms, carrots, lettuce, spring greens and much more.

Many of the menu choices are vegetarian. In season, Fresh Gatherings serves vegetables grown in the nutrition and dietetics’ department’s own organic garden. The garden is tended by University students and students from neighboring elementary schools who learn that potatoes come from the soil before they arrive at the grocery store.

Food waste from the cafeteria goes back into the soil of the University garden to fertilize it. In keeping with its commitment to sustainable food systems, Fresh Gatherings serves meals in containers that are environmentally friendly.

“It’s part of a cycle: grow it locally, eat it locally, recycle back to the soil, grow it locally,” Mattfeldt-Beman says.

“Our goal is for the cafeteria to increasingly become a teaching lab for the culinary and nutrition students. We’re betting everyone who stops by Fresh Gatherings will enjoy the learning process.”

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