Chef's Choice: Steven Caravelli, Sleek

Caravelli has a rich history with St. Louis food. He grew up with a mother who was a good cook and a father with the Sicilian passion for food. "My dad was always into watching PBS cooking shows when he was home from work. He's the one who got me into appreciating food. Every vacation involved a stop that was culinary-related. I'm the oldest of five, but we always found a way to eat a big meal. Like when we went to Florida, it was whatever fish we could get. Or eating oysters and sardines and olives that most kids don't eat."

His culinary curiosity continued while he studied journalism. He spent most of his college years working part-time at Columbia's now-defunct Village Wine and Cheese Shop. "That's where I started tasting wines and beers. I'd walk around and read the labels on the bottles of wine, taste every cheese and every type of cured meat that we had." A six-week study-abroad program led him to Belgium and Hungary, where he developed a taste for good beer while earning political-science college credits.

Why the journalism degree? "I always liked music, I always liked food. I always liked the arts, so I went to journalism school so I could write about them. I also had the pipe dream of being a real journalist, but I knew that wouldn't work out because I could write real articles, but I wasn't interested in it, really."

(I can understand his path, as I took a similar one that ran opposite Caravelli's. While we talked in Sleek's closed dining room one morning with the jangle of slot machines in the background, I realized I'd catered a lunch at the bank during his teller/food writer/line cook days. A few months later, Caravelli started cooking full-time. I eventually stopped cooking in favor of writing. Such is the tightness of St. Louis' culinary community.)