Review Preview: Riverbend Restaurant & Bar

This week I visit Riverbend Restaurant & Bar (701 Utah Street; 314-664-8443), which serves authentic Creole and Cajun cuisine at the southernmost tip of Soulard.

If you need confirmation that Riverbend Restaurant & Bar is a real-deal Creole joint, simply speak with owner Sam Kogos. You don't even have to ask him about his restaurant. You can hear New Orleans in his voice, that inviting southern drawl. You can taste it in Riverbend's food.

Kogos is a New Orleans native who owned a restaurant there, the Rendon Inn, from 1985 to 2000. His wife, Pat, hails from St. Louis, and in 2004, they relocated here. Pat wanted to be closer to her family.

"You know how those St. Louis girls are," he says, laughing.

Visit the RFT restaurant page late this afternoon or check back here tomorrow morning for my review.