The Shaved Duck Smokehouse — Restaurant in St. Louis

TLDR: The food is all VERY good and very flavorful. Make no mistake, nothing here is bland. A great place to try something a little different

THE MEATS: I ordered the 2 meat combination plate with tri-tip and meatloaf. The tri-tip was fantastic and perfectly cooked. The meatloaf was VERY smoky, which caught me by surprise. It's the most unique meatloaf I've had, and while good, was a little overwhelming for me. However, my partner loved it. The texture was perfect for a meatloaf, and honestly I was just intrigued more than anything when I saw it on the menu. I would definitely recommend it to meatloaf lovers looking for a little something different. The brisket burger is delicious and the bun is nice and fresh. 2 thick patties of ground beef.

THE SIDES: The Mac and cheese is very good! The texture is perfect, the noodles were well cooked. The topping was unusual (a little sweet?) but good! The slaw was also very good, though that's never been a favorite food of mine personally. The baked beans have lots of meat in it and are more on the soupy side than syrupy.

THE SAUCES: Their sauces show a love for experimenting with sweets and spices. Tilly seems to have a bit of an apple butter base flavor with spices. As a former Kentuckian, the bourbon sauce gets my stamp of approval. The name doesn't lie. Black Isle feels like an upgraded classic. 7 cherry chili is a surprisingly delicious mix of the sweet tartness of cherries and spice. The mango habanero (I think. Definitely mango something) was probably the sweetest, least spicy one I've had. It's good, but not as spicy as I've come to expect.

THE SPOT It's a small, but lovely little corner restaurant. It really looks a lot like I'd expected. No disappointment here. In fact, I wasn't expecting such a focus on music from what little I'd heard before going. But I was pleasantly surprised.

THE SERVICE It didn't seem like there was a lot of staff, but it started pretty slow and picked up as we ate. It was also just around noon on a weekend. Our server was very nice and knowledgeable. We'll definitely be back sometime! Give them a shot if you haven't yet!

THE COST it's not the cheapest spot in town, but it's far from the most expensive. The menu at the time of review is attached. The value for your money is definitely there and nothing...

Flavortown certified

Came here to try the wings and wasn’t disappointed. Smoky, crispy, and not those terrible jumbo wings that a lot places use. These were the perfect size and of tremendous quality. Nothing necessarily special or unique about them but they really hit the spot due to their overall preparation. 8.4/10 Clucks.

The ranch tasted and smelled like some basic, store bought, mass produced stuff which is surprising considering the level of effort put into everything else on the menu. Luckily I didn’t even need to use the ranch because the house made BBQ sauces are all SPECTACULAR. Every single one is vastly different from the next. A myriad of different flavor profiles to suit any palate. My favorites were the 7 chili and the ghost pepper.

My girlfriend got the duck confit and the meatloaf. She loved them both.

The fries were bland and limp, lacking a desirable level of crispiness.

The peach cobbler tasted store bought and made with Pillsbury biscuit dough. A tad disappointing. Something in the dish, possibly the cast iron pan, made one of my bites taste abhorrent. I’m not sure what it was but it ruined my whole dessert experience. I’ll chalk that up as a fluke and won’t hold it against them.

The cornbread was a bit sad because it had whole pieces of corn in it. I know some people like that but it just isn’t for me. I prefer a sweeter, homogenous, cornbread like they serve at Grace Meat + Three. That being said it was expertly crafted and if you like a more savory cornbread filled with whole pieces of corn then you’ll love this.

The bacon was probably my favorite thing I ate all night. Thick, candied, and covered in walnuts. I wish the portion was larger considering the price but it was phenomenal...

What an odd experience. We were a party of five on a Friday evening.

We are a group of siblings currently living in Michigan, Ohio, Maryland, and Georgia. Our father was in the USAF and we've all moved several times as adults. Our mother's family is from STL so we've been here many times over the decades. None of us profess to be barbecue experts but we are familiar with southern, KC, and North/South Carolina styles and like them all. If this is supposed to be STL style, we were not impressed.

We were not offered anything to drink other than water. That was very odd. We don't know if they lost their liquor license, but how hard is it to have soft drinks and tea?

We got the burnt ends and cornbread as apps for the table. None of us cared for the burnt ends. They were very fatty and not at all crisped the way were are used to. The cornbread was good.

We got several different entrees. The burnt ends sandwich was a repeat of the fatty chunks we got as an app. The smoked chicken was very good. The mashed potatoes were very good. The pulled pork sandwich was okay, but not great. The Brussels sprouts were also okay. The sauces were all different from what any of us were used to having and we honestly didn't like any of them enough to consider asking if they were for sale.

I got the smoked meatloaf. I can in no way recommend this dish. It didn't look like meatloaf, more like scrapple, but looks can be deceiving. This look wasn't. It was 2 very long, very thin slices. There wasn't any smoked flavor and it seemed very fatty.

Overall, this was a disappointing meal. If we had stayed in STL longer, we would not have returned and cannot recommend this...