Publisher Catherine Neville Discusses Feast, Lee Enterprises' New Culinary Publication

Lee Enterprises, parent company of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and numerous other publications, this week announced an August launch for Feast, a new culinary magazine for the St. Louis market. (Not to be confused with Feast, the food blog of St. Louis Magazine.)

Feast will be published in full-color on 9-inch by 12-inch newsprint, with a glossy cover. It will have an initial distribution of 70,000 and be available for free at restaurants, grocery stores and other food-related venues (e.g., kitchen-design centers) throughout the St. Louis area.

Catherine Neville, co-founder and former editor of Sauce Magazine, is the publisher of Feast. Gut Check had a chance to chat with her this morning.

"This is conceived as a national-level culinary magazine," she explains. "It's going to cover all things food, approaching the culinary scene in a style similar to a national magazine, like Bon Appétit."

Neville says Feast is intended to expand the coverage of culinary matters in St. Louis, rather than replicate the existing coverage: "This really is about [the totality of] food culture: cooking, gadgets, kitchen design, dining-room furniture."

One thing you won't find in Feast? Restaurant reviews -- though Neville adds that the magazine will make "editorial recommendations."

Launching simultaneously with the print edition will be Feast's website. (The site is live at this moment, though only for readers to sign up to receive more information.)

According to Neville, features on the website will include "a number of online-only columnists, a big video library, lots of interactive features, slideshows. When we do reprint [something from the print edition], we're going to do expanded coverage."

Concludes Neville, "I'm really excited."