An accidental restaurant and an enduring soup: Balaban’s Chilled Cucumber Bisque

This rich, creamy chilled cucumber bisque is an elegant starter. Make it up to a day ahead to give it time to chill. Recipe below.

RECENT NEWS MADE MY FORMER-SAINT-LOUISAN-PERENNIAL-FOODLOVER HEART SKIP A BEAT: the restaurant Balaban’s is moving back to the city. And according to a press release, the new owner is bringing back its “original menu and signature dishes.” For Marion and me, that means this glorious soup.

When Balaban’s opened in 1972, in St. Louis’s tony (and increasingly hip) Central West End neighborhood, it helped reshape dining in the city. But according to Lost Tables, a site that chronicles beloved closed St. Louis restaurants, it was just supposed to be a short-term fix to a landlord problem. A few restaurants had failed in that spot over a ten-year period, and building owner Herb Balaban feared it would get a “loser location” reputation. He asked his wife Adelaide to help him run a restaurant there until he could find a decent tenant for the space.

But Adelaide took a longer view. Even though she had no restaurant experience, she quickly threw herself into the place, creating a French-inspired menu. Herb did his part, creating a stylish European bistro setting. Balaban’s immediately took off, becoming the go-to spot in St. Louis, both for the food and the scene. The single storefront space expanded to three, then took over part of the sidewalk to create Cafe Balaban, a separate, more casual restaurant with its own menu. It was there that we discovered the delightful cucumber bisque.

It is cool and fresh and surprisingly luxurious—for that, credit goes to cream, egg yolks and lots of butter. When we still lived in St. Louis, we tried to find a recipe for this delicious soup, even begging various Balaban’s servers to ask the chef for us. Then the restaurant changed hands and menu directions numerous times and finally pulled up stakes for the suburbs.

Over the years, we’ve searched the internet in vain. Marion has made numerous cold cucumber soups on her own, never the same as the Balaban’s bisque, but always delicious in their own right. Still, when I heard the aforementioned news, I gave the search one more try. Bingo.

I found a few that purported to be the original recipe, wildly varied, of course. But one sounded reasonably legit, and I settled on it as a starting point. Balaban’s introduced the soup in 1974, but it turns out their recipe was based on an even older one, found in a 1968 Time-Life cookbook. I made a few minor adjustments to the surprisingly simple recipe, resisting the urge to make it fancier or more contemporary. From the moment I smelled the chopped onion and cucumber sweating in butter, I knew that even if it didn’t live up to our memory of the original, it would be good. If memory serves, this turned out pretty wonderfully close.

Cafe Balaban update: As of August 8, 2023, it hasn’t reopened yet. We’re guessing the pandemic had a hand in slowing the process. We do hope they make it happen.

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Balaban's Chilled Cucumber Bisque

This rich, creamy chilled cucumber bisque is a cool, elegant starter. Make it up to a day ahead to give it time to chill.

Course Soup

Cuisine French-inspired

Servings 4 as a starter

Ingredients

• 6 tablespoons butter, divided
• 1 cup chopped onion
• 2 cups peeled, chopped cucumbers
• 3 cups reduced-sodium chicken stock
• 2 tablespoons flour
• 2 egg yolks
• 1/2 cup half & half or cream (I used half & half)
• salt and freshly ground black pepper or white pepper (see Kitchen Notes)
• peeled and diced cucumber for garnish
• chopped chives for garnish

Instructions

• Melt 4 tablespoons of butter in a large stockpot over medium flame. Add the onion and chopped cucumber and cook, stirring frequently, until onion is translucent and softened, about 5 minutes. Be careful not to brown the onion—reduce heat, if needed.
• Add broth and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer uncovered for 30 to 40 minutes, stirring occasionally, until vegetables are very tender. Let cool slightly, then blend until smooth in a blender or food processor (you may need to do it in two batches—our blender handled it in one, though).
• In a medium bowl or 2-cup measuring cup, lightly beat egg yolks and whisk in cream to just combine. Set aside.
• Wipe out the stockpot with a paper towel, then melt the remaining 2 tablespoons of butter in it over medium heat. Add the flour and cook, whisking constantly, until lightly browned into a blond roux, 3 to 5 minutes. Return blended soup to pot and cook, whisking constantly, until soup is slightly thickened, 3 to 5 minutes.
• Ladle out 1 cup of soup. Gradually whisk it into the egg yolk/cream mixture, 1 or 2 tablespoons at a time, until combined. Also working slowly, stir this back into the stockpot of soup. The goal here is to not suddenly scramble the egg yolks, but to blend them into the soup. Over low heat, gently cook the soup for another 3 to 5 minutes—do not let it come to a boil. Taste and season with salt and pepper.
• Let soup cool, then refrigerate covered until completely chilled, at least 3 hours and up to overnight.
• Ladle chilled bisque into small serving bowls and garnish with diced cucumber and chives. Serve.

Kitchen Notes

Pepper in black and white. Recipes often specify white pepper for pale-colored dishes. Recipes I found for this bisque did. It's a purely visual decision, though, and I don't mind black pepper in something like this bisque. I did set my pepper grinder for a very fine grind.

More on Balaban's. Starting and running a restaurant like this is quite an adventure, charming and messy and done with love. Lost Tables covers the story of this storied restaurant in depth—with details like the fact that the nominal chef (although Adelaide ran the kitchen) had learned his basic skills working in a prison kitchen. You can read it all here.