The story of Gerard Craft coming to town is one that looms large in St. Louis, familiar even to casual fans of the city’s prolific dining scene. A boy from Washington, D.C., finds his way to Salt Lake City, Utah, to work as a snowboard photographer, lands a job in the restaurant industry and falls in love with it. The years that followed brought stints at Bistro Toujours in Park City, Utah, and a move to Los Angeles and a job at Chateau Marmont, but as time passed, something emerged: a growing desire for a restaurant of his own.

As fate would have it, the young chef and now CEO of Niche Food Group landed in St. Louis, a city he had never visited. Lured in by affordable real estate and the historic architecture of Benton Park, he opened Niche in 2005 at only 25 years old. “Benton Park

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