Over the past two years, O’Fallon, Illinois, has demanded attention for its restaurants. Le Ono, in the heart of the Metro East city’s downtown, features chef Talani Mo’e’s unique and often thrilling fusion of French and Polynesian cuisines. In an unassuming storefront just off Interstate 64, the fast-casual Palestinian restaurant West Bank Street Eats spit-roasts the best shawarma on either side of the river. Expand your map to include nearby Shiloh, and you can enjoy the charming seasonal café fare of June’s Breakfast + Patio.
August the Mansion, which opened in late March, is O’Fallon’s latest attraction. The name hints at the restaurant’s ambition. In its menu and ambience, August aims to join the ranks of destination dining in ºüÀêÊÓƵ. It succeeds, though what August is doing is more nuanced — more interesting — than simply that.
The name is also literal. August the Mansion does indeed occupy an actual mansion, built in 1857 by the eponymous August (sometimes A.J.) Wastfield and now a historical landmark. Though located a relatively short distance from both downtown O’Fallon and Interstate 64, the mansion casts a powerful spell of seclusion once you have arrived at the property. Electric tea lights line the path to the front door, and the mansion itself — two stories of red brick, windows with black shutters, a white portico — is dramatically illuminated. Behind the building, on one of the first cool evenings in September, diners nursed whiskeys around a crackling fire pit.
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Owners Candice and Justin Mills are not the first to see the mansion’s potential as a restaurant. Over the past three decades, it has operated as the Mansion at Lakepointe, Paulo’s at the Mansion and the Grille at the Mansion. August the Mansion’s debut marked the mansion’s reopening after nearly five years.
First-time restaurateurs (they also own an a geospatial information services firm nearby), the Millses have tapped two veterans of the metro area’s dining scene to lead August the Mansion. Jessica Hickman is the executive chef, and Alejandro Molina is the general manager. Both Hickman and Molina count time with Gerard Craft’s Niche Food Group on their resumes, and August the Mansion’s service follows the spirit of Craft’s higher-end restaurants, neither too familiar nor overbearingly formal.
The physical space occupies the same sweet spot. The dining rooms in the mansion proper are fit for a special occasion, and you should probably make a reservation if you want to dine in one of them. But a modern extension in back features the restaurant’s bar and numerous tables in a more casual setting. A sign at the head of the path from the parking lot directs walk-in guests toward an entrance directly into this room.
Hickman’s menu follows a broad template that I guess you could call New American if that term, uselessly vague to begin with, weren’t already dated — and if her cooking weren’t refreshingly focused on the diner’s pleasure first, not the chef’s ego.
What the menu simply calls a pork chop is an understatement: a whopping rib chop from Ernst Family Farms in New Douglas, properly seasoned (no guarantee these days) to convey its rich, sweet porcine succulence. Hickman draws out that natural sweetness further with a swanky peach-Champagne glaze. For additional swagger, more lingering smokiness than overwhelming pork-on-pork combo, she serves bacon-braised cabbage alongside the chop.
For an additional, exceptional side for the pork (or any main course), order the Brussels sprouts, which are listed as an appetizer. Tender, without the hard charring that has become customary for the vegetable, with the tang and murmuring heat of a red wine agrodolce, and dressed with bacon, feta, pistachios and cranberries, these are the best Brussels sprouts I’ve eaten in a restaurant. Yes, they shine on their own as a starter. Think of them as a warm salad.
Fork-tender beef short ribs in red wine jus is an unimpeachable classic. (Though I did not want to order it until that first cool September evening I mentioned earlier.) Subtle details set Hickman’s version apart. The ribs sit on a bed of polenta so creamy with white cheddar from Marcoot Jersey Creamery in Greenville that you will wish you had some tortilla chips for dipping. Gracing the dish like an oversized garnish are two slices of heirloom carrot, cooked enough to coax out more of their earthy essence, but retaining an ideal al dente snappiness.
There are global touches, as you would expect in a contemporary restaurant: the Peruvian Chicken electrifies grilled chicken thighs with a bright, moderately spicy aji verde and an additional spark from chili-lime potatoes and cauliflower —two ingredients that don’t usually jolt many dishes. Basque-style “burnt†cheesecake, lately trendy, is a standout on the brief dessert menu, though as much for the tart blackberry compote spooned atop the cheesecake as the cheesecake itself.
There is also a burger, as you apparently expect in pretty much any restaurant nowadays. It’s a good one, a medium-sized patty gussied up with smoked gouda (again from Marcoot), sticky bacon jam and the umami blast of a roasted-garlic aioli.
The burger is one example of how August the Mansion is trying to avoid being pigeonholed as only destination fine-dining. Yes, this is a beautiful, upscale restaurant, and the dishes are priced accordingly. (The burger, which includes a generous portion of crisp, very skinny fries, is $20, for example.) But it isn’t a small restaurant, and it opens at 3 p.m. four days a week. Especially in today’s uncertain restaurant climate, it needs to appeal to local, spur-of-the-moment diners as well as the special-occasion set.
There is even a happy hour menu before and after the prime dinner hours Wednesday-Friday and after those prime hours only on Saturday. If you doubt my rave about those Brussels sprouts, you can order them for half-price during this happy hour. Or you can try August the Mansion’s cagliate, cornmeal-crusted Marcoot cheese with a tangy, herbaceous dip.
Am I sending you to O’Fallon, Illinois, for fried cheese and ranch? I am.