Serving healthy diner food for Breakfast and Lunch in an upbeat, cozy and fun atmosphere – possibly the grooviest place to hang out in all of St. Louis!

There are no trans fats used in any of the food we serve. Only Omega-3 oils or pure butter are used, butter being used mainly in the desserts. Most of the food we prepare is actually very rejuvenating to the body, especially the wild Alaskan Salmon, the good oils, and fruits & vegetables. We want you to leave here knowing you ate food that was beneficial to your body, but it also has to taste really good. So if you're going to be “bad” (i.e., dessert or French toast) at least you know that those dishes are made with pure butter or expeller-pressed grapeseed oil. We believe that avoiding trans fats at all costs is tantamount to good health.

MENU
(the web master removed prices as they could change)

Sandwiches - Except where noted, sandwiches are served with your choice of All Natural Oven-Baked Fries or our special Asian Ginger Slaw.

B L T
Veggie bacon with healthy mayo, tomatoes, and crunchy Romaine lettuce on toasted thick cut whole wheat bread.

Other Great stuff

Salads

The Owners personal “foolosophy” about

What I've tried to create here is a place where I always wanted to go and eat but one that I could never find. I don't want it to feel “trendy,” just fun. The food is not New American, Neo-Ethnic, Fusion or anything else. It's simply what I like to fix for myself at home; my version of home-cooked food. I do not think of myself as a chef nor do I want to be considered one—that's too complicated. I thank you for coming and I hope have a really enjoyable time.

Best Sunday Brunch - Shangri-La Diner
 

If Holly Go lightly had practiced her insouciant brand of hedonism just a few years longer -- waiting out the goody-two-shoes good times of the late 1950s and early 1960s and helping herald in America's groovy, post-JFK counterculture -- she wouldn't have had any more breakfasts at Tiffany's. She would have enjoyed brunches at Shangri-La, a trippy time capsule of a diner nestled among the vintage stores of Cherokee Street's quaint Antique Row. The place screams acid trip, from the Pucci-inspired hanging beads to the Yellow Submarine poster at the counter. Shangri-La is only open four days a week, serving breakfast Thursday through Saturday and an all-you-can-eat buffet brunch on Sunday that brings out south city's artsy-fartsies in droves. Shangri-La is a vegetarian (not vegan) restaurant, so the food can be hippy-dippy: scrambled tofu, multigrain toast, fake bacon. But there's also a gluttonous crème brélée French toast, fruit pie and sprightly fresh-squeezed strawberry-lime-orange juice. As the Archie's would have sung (probably in a place much like this one): aw, sugar sugar!

Alternative Energy
Food & Drink
Best Burger (Non-Beef Division)
The Best Veggie Burger in Town!

Sweet Lord Almighty, the menu at the Shangri-La Diner can read our mind. We've been enjoying Patrice Mari's excellent veggie burger ever since the Shangri-La opened its groovy doors in 2005. We've tried in vain to find a veggie burger as tasty, as juicy—what the hell, as meaty as the Shangri-La's. Aiming to sample this stellar sandwich just one more time before placing the Best Of crown atop its fluffy bun, we stopped by the diner on a recent afternoon. Took a seat. Opened the menu. Ordered...The Best Veggie Burger in Town! (!) Consider our thunder stolen. But really, who cares? The menu speaks the truth. Mari makes her patties with AuraPro. She's keeping mum about her exact recipe—"We have to keep some secrets!" she laughs—but we detect garlic, salt, maybe a little red pepper. Top with lettuce, tomato and onion, serve on a pillow-soft egg bun, and there you have it. We like to order oven-baked fries on the side, dipped in Mari's awesome curry ketchup. (But confidential to the mind-reading menu: Cut it out. That's just spooky.)

Shangri-La Diner
By Stefanie Ellis, SPECIAL TO THE POST-DISPATCH
07/06/2006

Several years ago during a visit to Chicago, a friend and I decided to visit one of the city's many funky breakfast-and-lunch joints. The big draws were its eclectic decor and creative menu offerings that catered to vegetarians. We were in love with the idea.

But apparently, so was everyone else: There was a two-hour wait. So we grabbed a turkey sandwich at the deli next door.

I've always longed for a place like that Chicago joint in my own city. When I stumbled upon the Web site for Shangri-La Diner, it seemed that my wait was over. We got a seat right away and took in the scenery as Joni Mitchell and the Beatles played in the background.

Beads hang from the ceiling, swatches of paisley fabric take the place of curtains, metal sculptures adorn the walls and stray Barbie dolls dangle gracefully from the ceiling in a way only a Barbie could. Even a fire hydrant outside is painted in paisley.

A quick read of the menu gave the impression it would also be a banquet for the taste buds. With such items as creme brulee, French toast, homemade granola, veggie Reuben sandwiches, homemade cupcakes and blueberry milkshakes, how could it be anything but?

The soft fish taco ($6), a tomato tortilla stuffed with spicy salmon, guacamole, cabbage, carrots, cheddar cheese and salsa, was tasty, though its flavors were a bit understated. The salmon had no real indication of spice, and the guacamole was good, if not underseasoned. It came with tortilla chips and made for a mostly satisfying meal.

The Fat Mattress 2 ($6), a Reuben on swirled rye with sauerkraut, Swiss cheese and thousand island dressing, was a fun take on the popular deli sandwich. It came with either shredded smoky salmon or vegetarian corned beef.

"When in Shangri-La ...," said my companion, referring to the Diner's pro-vegetarian menu and choosing the veggie corned beef. Despite the fact that I was a vegetarian for seven years, I've never been able to make the move into faux meat, so when the Reuben arrived, I approached it with a bit of trepidation.

The sandwich was pretty good, though a tad too tangy, and the bread's lightly toasted texture was perfect sandwich consistency. Then there was the corned beef. Its white and pink composition resembled the plastic bacon I had in my play kitchen as a child. It had the same mouth feel as the Swiss cheese to which it was melded, and possessed only a slight hint of meat flavor.

I'm sure creative science has given us some tasty meat alternatives - but this, for me, wasn't one of them.

The Hostess with the Mostess ($3), a homespun knock-off of the Hostess cupcake, beautifully resembles the original. The taste, however, doesn't. The cake has a distinct cocoa flavor, but the filling, an airy meringue, was devoid of any distinguishable taste. I like that it wasn't as sweet as its namesake, but there was really no evidence of sweetness at all.

It was a nice change from the superheavy butter-cream frosting we're used to, but just fell flat. Even the ganache on top was plain.

Shangri-La Diner is clean and bright, and I appreciate the passion that has gone into creating it. My first meal there wasn't a standout, but I would definitely give it another shot. After all, it's a heck of a lot closer than Chicago.

Shangri-La Diner

Address: 2201 Cherokee Street

Hours: 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Thursday-Saturday; 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Sunday brunch

Smoking: No

Wheelchair access: Yes

Payment: Checks and cash only

Phone: 314-772-8308

 

Brunchadelic
Shangri-La is a luscious slice of Americana
By Rose Martelli - Article Published Sep 14, 2005

Americana comes in many forms. Sometimes it's the painting American Gothic, or Edward Hopper's 1942 scene-from-a-diner masterpiece, Nighthawks. Sometimes it's roadside burger shacks, grease trucks parked on the fringes of college campuses, Mom's apple pie, drugstore soda fountains or red-checkered tablecloths. Oftentimes, Americana is represented through food, arguably the greatest nostalgic force there is.

The five-month-old Shangri-La Diner, on Cherokee Street's Antique Row in south city, embodies a modern-day tweak on Americana. On the tabletops sit those wonderful, beveled-glass sugar decanters, but at Shangri-La they're filled with raw, brown-hued sugar. There are milkshakes and malts, but there're also glasses of sprightly, tart, freshly squeezed and pureed strawberry lemonade, served with bubblegum-pink bendy straws. Seating options at Shangri-La include red-vinyl banquettes and pink-Formica two-tops. Along the eatery's eastern wall, these tables are paired up two-by-two and separated from other makeshift four-tops by rows of purple-and-lime-green hanging beads that resemble big, dangly Pucci-Bakelite earrings. The counter at the back and the shelves behind it serve as home to a cornucopia of kitsch: twinkle lights, fake palm trees, leis draped over this and that, an old-fashioned milkshake mixer (soon to be put to actual use whipping up those aforementioned shakes and malts; for now, they're made with a second mixer in the kitchen), a powder-blue rotary phone (in actual use), Barbie dolls, Yellow Submarine posters.

It's the Swinging '60s all over again at Shangri-La. Not only does the décor bang out a syncopated riff on all things psychedelic, funkadelic and Technicolor-dreamy (keyed up to a soundtrack of '60s oldies, hackneyed hits that somehow feel fresh all over again in these environs), but owner Patrice Mari's menu hearkens those hippy-dippy-groovy days when conscientious eating first began to come into its own, when vegetarianism and organic foodstuffs started spreading across many a Berkeley commune and grocery-store co-op.

Nowadays, that sort of trend is usually tabulated and popularized via best-selling diet books; Mari herself is a disciple of The Perricone Prescription, written by Dr. Nicholas Perricone, who advocates an anti-aging regimen free of trans-fats and full of such superfoods as spinach, salmon, beans, tofu, whole grains, fruits and broccoli. She's not afraid of desserts, to be sure (witness again those shakes and malts), but at least she employs pure butter and cream in their recipes.

Shangri-La is only open four days a week, serving breakfast and lunch Thursday, Friday and Saturday, and then an all-you-can-eat brunch on Sunday. The menu is small, curiously curated and across-the-board delish. Four sandwiches include a spicy salmon burger, a soft-textured delight that employs a filet of wild Alaskan salmon and a delicious remoulade on old-fashioned egg bread, and "The Fat Mattress," a chicken-salad sandwich that substitutes mushroom-based faux chicken for bona fide poultry. (The difference in taste from the real thing is slight; don't search for it, and you won't even know it's there.) Other lunch items include a straightforward black-bean burrito made with brown rice and Cheddar, and a golden and flaky quesadilla made with Mexican Chihuahua cheese on a whole-wheat tortilla, served with a ramekin of house-made salsa that combines tomatillos verdes, red salsa, and roasted vegetables and garlic. The soft fish taco (a spicy salmon sausage, guacamole, Cheddar, slaw and salsa wrapped in a tomato tortilla) is the best around next to Salina's in Chesterfield, which is really saying something.

African spinach stew is not something you encounter everyday, if ever on any day at all. Mari claims it's an authentic West African dish introduced to her years back by a friend. She messed around with the proportions of its ingredients, which are basically cooked, chopped spinach, peanut butter and some diced and cooked white onion. The peanut butter isn't visible; it just looks like a plate of spinach. It tastes exactly like, well, spinach and peanut butter, two great tastes that sound awful -- but taste wonderful -- together.

Here's how Mari outlines her "foolosophy" on Shangri-La's menu: "What I've tried to create here is a place I always wanted to go and eat at but one that I could never find. The food is not New American, Neo-Ethnic, Fusion or anything else. It's simply what I like to fix for myself at home -- my version of home-cooked food. I do not consider myself a chef, nor do I want to be considered one...I just like to create tasty good-for-you food and have fun doing it."

Mari may say she doesn't want to be known as a chef -- and indeed, on one of my visits she apologized for forgetting to put the salsa on the side of my soft fish taco by saying, "I'm still learning how to cook" -- but that's a reputation from which she may find it hard to hide. Way back in the day (1982-92), she ran the much-loved La Patisserie, a coffee shop in the Loop where Meshuggah now stands. For the past six years or so, she was responsible for the Sunday brunch at MoKaBe's off South Grand, one of the most popular and jam-packed weekend repasts for St. Louis' hipsterati, many of whom have followed her brunch here.

Strawberry-lime-orange juice. Iced coffee. A broccoli-Cheddar quiche that tastes like a homey cheese casserole. Watermelon slices. Fake bacon ("Fakin'"?) that comes off more like construction paper dip-dyed in red ink. A pretty good sloppy Joe, made from TVP (texturized vegetable protein, the same stuff found in most supermarket-sold veggie burgers). And a crème brûlée French toast best scarfed down without coming up for air, a gooey, undercooked delight with bits of burnt, crusty sugar like hardened lava. (Sugar's skin-wrinkling, metabolism-screwing properties be damned, Mari knows her way around sweets. She makes a cupcake called Hostess with the Mostess, an oversize, homemade rendition of Hostess' cupcakes that, in comparison, renders the original akin to sawdust smeared with caulk.)

Shangri-La's Sunday brunch is often packed, yet everybody there seems to adopt a cheery approach to the crowding, squeezing along the banquette, passing highchairs over the heads of those huddled by the doorway, waiting for a table. It helps that tables seem to open up with good frequency, keeping the waits short; it also helps that everybody seems to know everybody else, like one big open-minded, counterculture-infused, progressively charged family. (Mari estimates that 75 percent of her brunch business comes from "upwardly mobile vegan hipsters," the rest, "mom-and-pop antiquers who come in looking for meat but stay anyway because they love the food.")

The institution of brunch, that cutesy, cosmopolitan thing you do on late weekend mornings, may not date back that far in the history of American gastronomy. Eating good food in good company -- well, that's classic. Welcome to Shangri-La.
 

Last updated: Friday, November 14, 2008