Expat BBQ — Restaurant in St. Louis

Some of the best BBQ I’ve had in St Louis. Beautiful restaurant that’s open with great lighting and decor no matter where you sit. This was our first time in and knowing they’ve only been open for two weeks we expected the kitchen and front of the house to still be getting their legs under them, which is understandable when a new restaurant opens and one of this size. While our food was slow to come out the staff was very proactive about telling us and apologized for the delay, but this was honestly great for us since we ordered almost the entire menu and were in no hurry. The folks in reviews complaining about this have clearly never worked in a restaurant or understand what it takes to make all that magic happen, and I give major respect to the staff AND their managers because for being as well run as they were for a dinner rush on a Saturday night they were doing a phenomenal job.

On to the food! The starters we tried were the jerk wings, amazing with the right balance of spice and heat. The cheese bread, cucumber salad and fried kimchi (think deep fried pickles with a kimchi flavor profile). Everything was delicious, but the wings were the standout app.

For mains we did the full rack of ribs, pulled pork, brisket, and steak. Everything was delicious with good portions since they are BBQ plates and designed as entree’s. I hope in the future they over family style options for bigger parties or groups that like to share. The standouts for us were the ribs and steak, the brisket was just ok, and the pulled pork was good but there’s only so much you can do to make pulled pork amazing. Everything was served hot and perfectly balanced.

After dinner we went to the terrace and highly recommend doing the same for a post meal cocktail. The space is large with many different seating options to accommodate couples on dates to singles at the bar or large table setups for groups. They have multiple large TVs for watching the game and the cocktails are delicious.

Overall I expected a lot from Expat BBQ because of the chef behind it and they/he and his team delivered. Amazing space, stellar staff, and delicious food and cocktails that will only get better as they nail down service. Can’t wait to come back...

I love supporting local businesses and hate writing bad reviews as someone who worked a long time in the food service industry, but the food and experience here was so bad I feel obligated to. The food was so bad and barely lukewarm when served. Even if it has been fresh, it would have been horrible. Brisket was so dry and chewy that even the chincy bit of white BBQ sauce didn't help. The curds were just plain bad and grease logged and not fresh. Go to Eat Crow if you want good curds. Also I'm not sure why the popovers are called that because they aren't popovers and flavor was bland and texture chewy in a stale way. Cheese inside wasn't melted, but probably because everything was served that way. They were dead plates and should not have been served at all. Unfortunately wven my cocktail was a mess. The bartenders made the cocktail I ordered, then strained it into an oversized shot glass with a garnish and no ice. Who ever heard of a cocktail with no ice?! Is was not made well regardless and tasted strange even after I asked for a separate cup of ice to put it in. Also the price point is ridiculous for such awful food and drink. If you're going to charge premium prices, the food needs to be fresh and well made and the cocktails need to be served in an actual glass and not plastic cups. Another weird part of the experience is that Topo Chico was on the menu, but after asking for it 3x and waiting over 20 minutes, we finally were served a different brand of sparkling water. Not sure if they were out and never got to the bottom of it. It was a combination of extremely long wait times, bad communication, bad food and drinks with high prices, so we will not be coming back. Location and ambience was nice, but not enough to tempt me to risk it again. I really look forward to eating out only once on the weekends after eating clean during week, so this extremelyyyyy disappointing to me and I am regretful choosing this as my one cheat meal. If I hadn't been starving and too late to go somewhere else, I would have...

So I excitedly went to Expat BBQ. I saw some good reviews on TikTok about the atmosphere and food. Now atmosphere, I'll agree with. The food NO MA'AM! I have never given a restaurant one star but that's all Expat earned. First off, I was so excited about the outside rooftop seating. The day I went they had a nice live band but the niceness stopped there, seriously! When the waitress came with our food (which we were sharing), we asked for plates and utensils. She pointed and said, "You get those over there." When we went to the area she pointed out, there were no plates or napkins. When we looked for the waitress, she was nowhere to be found. The waitress never came back. Not even to see if we liked the food or anything. And lord, don't bring up the food. We noticed lots of people had food left behind and to me, that's never a good sign. I remained hopeful and was I disappointed. Nothing was hot. We did get warm cheese curds and they were the best Expat offered us. The potato salad was bland. The ribs were barely warm and had a strange aftertaste. The jerk wings were not jerking at all. And absolutely nothing tasted like barbecue. No smoke flavor at all. Hard, dry cornbread, lukewarm jalapeño macaroni, and meh greens. Just a bunch of weird aftertaste. I get that there are supposed to be unique flavors here and I'm all for that. This food just was not fresh or tasty at all. When we asked for the manager, he just came and rudely grabbed the plates. I got the vibe he knew it wasn't good. He grabbed the food, did not apologize, and said, "Don't worry about it. It's off your bill." By no means was our goal free food. Heck, we were hungry and waited for an inedible meal. I forgot to mention, we ordered 2 margaritas when we got there. When we were leaving, a different waitress came with them. Since we were leaving we waited so long for the drinks, that they took them off the bill. No more Expat for me. I don't recommend. Unless you wanna just go sit and enjoy the...