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For as long as they've been around, parks have been associated with love.

Whether it's the love of nature or a lovely location for a date, or in the case of St. Louis most celebrated greenscape, Forest Park Home to the St. Louis Zoo, the art and history museums and the Muny.

The love of arts can also be included.

But what about food?

Picnics tend to be the first thing people think of when you mention food in parks.

But in reality, there is enough food in Forest Park that you never need to bring a picnic basket.

As a chef, I need to stay curious in order to evolve.

For me, that means looking beyond a good meal to learn more about who made it and what inspires them to cook.

La comida es amor Every great city has great food.

I'm going on a journey around the world.

Right here in St. Louis.

I'm on a quest to find passionate chefs who cooks from the heart.

"That's exciting" To prove that food is love.

And it's going to be delicious.

Food is love.

Love your food.

I'm beginning my research of food in Forest Park at a place that's long been a source of pride for the city and an invaluable resource to people everywhere.

The St. Louis Art Museum is one of the best in the country, housing thousands of significant works and artifacts from all over the world, from artists like Monet and Van Gogh, just to name drop a couple of the big ones.

Free admission to the art museum galleries makes this significant collection here available to anyone to view and appreciate.

But there is a side of the museum the public doesn't get to see.

The kitchen of the museum restaurant Panorama.

This is the part of the museum nobody sees, right?

This is what we call K1 Panorama Kitchen.

This is where we do ala carte, pretty much.

This is where the action happens.

Today, Chef Joseph Gardner has agreed to show us around the kitchen and some of the food.

What is this up here, that looks impressive?

Our chicken Waldorf salad with little bib lettuce, candied nuts, little champagne vinaigrette, watermelon radish.

That's kind of our thing here.

First is taste, the next is, it's an art museum.

yes.

Visually, it has to be pleasing.

Looking for colors, we're looking for strong lines.

We're looking for height.

The kitchen here feels really efficient.

You can tell Chef runs a tight ship.

I like it.

One of our main goals is quick ticket time.

We try to balance the flavors, the techniques, but simplify it in a way where we can get a ticket out in ten minutes.

Next, Joe is going to show us the preparation for his cauliflower steak.

We wanted to get a nice crust on it.

As a vegan dish, this one is popular right now.

From the first bite.

I can see why this one's a favorite.

Thank you, Chef.

It was great.

This is very good.

Wow.

Thank you.

Appreciate it.

No trip to the St. Louis Art Museum would be complete without a stroll through the halls to appreciate the collection here.

So I'm meeting up with museum director Min Jung Kim to get a tour of some of the works.

We're thrilled to be here.

From 1908, we have been offering free admissions, and as a result, we've been welcoming St. Louisans for more than a century.

Our collection is really a result of incredible donors and patrons who have gifted works.

Almost 70% of our work is a reflection of collections and gifts that have been generously donated.

So when I say we have a world class collection, it really means we have world class collectors here in St. Louis.

It's like when people ask me, what's your favorite restaurant?

You don't have a piece in here You can say that that's your favorite.

Oh, just like you couldn't answer.

Yeah.

For me, it's a little bit like asking, who's your favorite child?

In 2021, Min was appointed the first female director of the museum's history, bringing a storied background of experience to a role here.

Formerly, Min worked with the Guggenheim Museum in New York.

I'm originally from Korea and have lived in different parts of the United States, but really, I'm so excited to be here in St. Louis.

I feel like there's so much more about this great place that I'm just getting to know.

We've got a little soup terrine here.

Yeah.

I mean, what's the odds this is the first thing we see?

Wow.

So as you see here, this is an extraordinary work by Paul Delimary, and it's a terrine in the shape of a green turtle.

Soup was actually served from this terrine as well, and I would guess it's probably for turtle soup.

Turtle soup was indeed quite the fashion at some point in time... And it's delicious.

I've made it many times.

It tastes like chicken.

Moving to St. Louis, no doubt, was a little bit of a culture shock, but in talking to Min, I can tell she already has a good understanding of St. Louis immigrant culture and the role the museum plays in all of it.

When I go to a different place, I want to eat the food in order to get to know the culture.

And to some extent, that's what I'm doing here in St. Louis As I'm coming into a new community, I'm trying out different restaurants as a way of getting to know St. Louis And whether it's Bosnian or Vietnamese, Thai, you're also getting to know a little bit of the immigrant population and more into the different communities and identities of a particular place.

And all of that, As much as I love it personally, it also relates back to the museum because virtually every culture that I've mentioned plus more, is also represented here as part of our collection.

So to be able to make those connections from food to art as part of community is something we're really excited to be a part of.

It's beautiful, really.

I couldn't have asked for a better tour.

Back at Panorama, Chef Joe has prepared us a nice lunch with a view of Forest Park out the window.

Great food and company.

This is one museum experience I will always remember.

Joe and Min was very kind and accommodating.

But the day is still young and there's a lot of ground to cover in Forest Park.

The skies are clearing to make a picture perfect afternoon.

Just a kind of evening that lends itself to a performance at Forest Park.

Forest Park is such a treasure trove of activities.

I'm of course, referring to the Muni Theater.

I've never been to the Muni myself, but I heard a lot of positive things about it.

To get a better idea and see it firsthand, I'm meeting the president and CEO of the Muni, Kwafi Coleman, to talk about its impact and importance to Forest Park.

So what does that mean?

Muni?

What is that?

Is that short for something?

Municipal Theater Association of St. Louis.

So we're 104 seasons in, just entertaining the people of St. Louis.

We seat 11,000 people every night.

The last nine rows of 1500 seats are free seats.

Oh, wow.

It's big.

Yeah, it's the oldest, largest one in the world.

Oldest, largest outdoor musical theater in the world here.

The truth of it is that it's big.

It seems massive, but there's definitely a truly intimate nature to it.

Wow, this is really impressive.

I guess I wasn't expecting such a huge theater.

So the mayor back in 1919, the parks director, came together.

There was a production of "As You Like It" So Forest Park was the the home of the 1904 World's Fair.

That's where this park originally kind of came to be.

And so they wanted to, they did that production in 1919.

All of St. Louis gathered together around a show and they saw it all walks of life, all corners of the city.

So that concept of a community coming together to watch a theater production was born there.

Well, I mean, it seems to me that it's almost like the epicenter of St. Louis, right?

All the arts institutions in Forest Park kind of come together to represent the best of what the city has to offer.

From art to history to music to science, all of it kind of exists here.

It's the crossroads.

It's truly the center of the city.

Kwafi's role here wasn't always as president.

In fact, he started out as an usher here in his youth.

Are you from St. Louis?

I am.

So when I was 16 years old, I was an usher here.

I used to push wheelchairs up this ramp.

I was in better shape.

My older sister worked here, and that's just how it started.

I appreciated theater, but I was never brave nor talented enough to do this myself.

But I found a place where people really came together, and seeing again all St.Louis gather around.

A single concept was a really interesting and invigorating, and it kind of shaped who I was.

My family's first generation here.

We don't have deep ties to St. Louis but it helped me really learn and connect with this community, and that's how it started.

And I kept coming back every summer, and it turned into a lifelong career.

His story is the classic tale of how hard work and commitment pays off.

Again, I go back to you don't have to travel very far when you live here, because you have you have a little bit of everything.

Definitely.

We think so.

I mean, this is super cool.

We just need to get Jimmy Buffett in here.

Then we'll make a phone call.

Can you make a phone call?

Do you know him?

Because I don't, but no, I'm saying you make the phone call, not me!

I can't wait to see a show here sometime.

But before the show start, there is a tradition that St. Louisans have long perpetuated during theater season, the picnic in the park.

Often, people attending an evening show at the Muni will prepare a picnic dinner to eat in the park before the show.

And it doesn't have to be complicated or fancy.

This family set up a table and brought a St. Louis style pizza.

I mean, this is perfect, right?

You have Imo's pizza, which is totally St. Louis.

Now I wish I brought my own picnic or maybe a chair so I can join these guys.

Oh, well, maybe next time and anyway, right now, I have a date in the park with a St. Louis food celebrity of sorts, chef Mike Johnson the man behind SugarFire barbecue, HiPoint and Chicken Out Chicken restaurants.

His popular barbecue restaurant, SugarFire, has a location here at Forest Park at the Boathouse.

I mean, what is more romantic than barbecue in the park?

Well, maybe a paddle boat ride.

Are you nervous?

No.

I love the water.

Has anybody ever died in this thing?

It's just a great place in St. Louis, Forest park.

I think it's the best part of St. Louis.

You know, I travel the world a lot for barbecue.

And whenever anybody comes, the first place I bring them is Forest Park.

I just had a group up from Australia, and they spent their whole time here.

We went to the Muni.

Oh, dude, is that place cool or what bro?

It's so cool.

Yes.

The Zoo, The Art Museum, The History Museum, everything.

The skating rink, the golf courses are incredible.

This is actually harder than it looks.

But I'm not too worried because my chefly figure makes me naturally buoyant.

It's beautiful.

I come out here and walk around the park all the time.

I think it's like 6 miles.

How your legs?

Are they tired yet?

No.

You look like you're struggling a little bit.

No, I'm just messing with you, bro.

No, it's fine.

It's good for me.

You know, I I've been eating and drinking my way around St Louis People always ask, whats the secret of barbecue.

There's no secret.

The secret is there is no secret.

Okay.

You have good meat, you have good seasoning.

If you want, you have a good smoker, and then you have time.

You can't rush good barbecue.

Just take your time until it's ready.

People always say, how long is going to take?

I don't know.

You might think with a smaller venue like this in the park, that menu items like ribs and brisket would come from a consignment kitchen somewhere else, but that's not the case at all.

That says a lot about the quality that SugarFire has become known for.

So these are smash burgers, right?

Yeah, smash.

When I went to Hi Point, it's all those edges, too, that gets nice, crispy.

Yeah, you got to have a really good grill.

A lot of cooks like to mess with their food.

They put it in a pan, they're shaking it.

Yeah.

Don't touch it.

Don't touch.

Don't touch.

If you look in, you ain't cooking.

So if you just want to leave it like that, you're going to get it crispy on one side.

There should be enough fat in there to keep it moist.

And you want that hot, crispy sear, because that's part of the bite biting the burger.

Another thing that I think is important is a toasted bun, because the toasted bun, it gets the butter flavor on there and makes the bun taste better.

It protects the bun from getting wet.

You know what I'm saying?

So that's going to be on there, too.

Look at that.

Look how beautiful those are.

Those are just perfect right there.

To me, those are perfect smashed patties.

We got 25% short rib meat, 25% brisket meat, 50% chuck.

And to me, that's the perfect way to go.

Yeah.

American cheese is the best on a burger.

Good, crispy bacon.

These are beautiful burgers that they're serving here.

Actually, I prefer a potato bun with potato flour.

The density of it, it takes the butter toast really good and keeps it kind of steamy.

What do you think?

Cheers.

Cheers.

How do you say cheers?

Skol This is great.

Yeah.

Anybody can make a world class burger.

Isn't that fitting, though, that you have a world class museum, And of course we're going to have to have a world champion like you in the boathouse.

Right.

This is great.

Appreciate it.

My hands all ..and I'm coming to Turks and Caicos.

Officially invited.

In spite of his reputation as a wild card, I found Mike's company to be very pleasant and entertaining.

Perhaps a second date is in the cards for the future, but we will see.

Did we just become best friends?

Yes For now, as the sun sets over the lake, I'm here to talk to Lesley Hofforth of Forest Park Forever and Greg Hayes, director of Parks, Recreation and Forestry, to reflect on the work that's been done to preserve the park for the future.

I was thinking today, if you are in the city, no close proximity to water, what a great place to come out here.

And you have it right here.

It's just like you sit on any coastline, right?

What do you do?

You watch people on the water.

You watch the activity on the water and there's a lot of activity here with the ducks, the fish and turtles.

It has really been that spot that no matter what, you can come to the park and just seeing people really using the park differently for picnics, meeting with friends, lots of birthday parties spread out and everybody brings food.

It's all about coming together around food.

But there's a lot of history here.

So much history.

It was originally meant to be a place to come and get out of the smog of the coal burning city back in the late 1800 It's always been a place that was for all St. Louis and just that great equalizer.

We love that we get to help take care of this place and kind of carry that on from generation to generation and give people that backdrop to have their picnic, go to the Muni, come here to the boathouse.

And this park typically gets, on average, 13 million visitors a year.

13 million visitors a year.

That's impressive.

And a lot of love for a park.

Toast to that.

All right.

I've seen and done a lot today, but not nearly everything.

And so the morning comes early with a rendezvous at the Zoo.

Known as one of the top zoos in the nation, St. Louis didn't get that reputation by chance.

A vast collection of animals lives here.

And like other parts of the park, admission to the Zoo is free of charge, making it another excellent resource housed in Forest Park.

But why am I at the Zoo, you ask?

I'm here today to see what goes into taking care of so many different animals and find out what some of them are having for lunch today.

Like a lot of restaurant kitchens, a whiteboard serves as the day's grocery list, herring and mackerel sounds kind of good, but you can hold on the earthworms, please.

Other than some of the ingredients, any chef in the city would feel at home in this kitchen.

I wish I had a walk in freezer this big in my restaurant.

Minus the frozen mice, though.

So I'm assuming you're the most popular guy in the Zoo.

I mean, with the animals.

The animals tend to love us, but they don't see us very often.

So you're not actually doing the feeding?

We don't do the feedings, no.

We just provide the food for them.

Well, it's just like me.

I do all the cooking and all the servers get the tips and all the accolades.

There you go.

Welcome to the club.

Now I can say I'll be cooking for the animals see.

This part isn't really much different from normal kitchen prep.

Well, this is my first day on the job, so I need all the input I can get.

This is one of my favorite things to eat.

I have never eaten herring.

No?

It's delicious.

I've been looking for this in St. Louis for a long time and I had to go to the Zoo Got you covered.

To get herring.

But to learn more what goes into the diets of the animals here, I'm sitting down to talk to animal nutritionist Deborah Schmitt Food is also love to animals, right?

I mean, you know how much they appreciate being fed.

You're in charge of 14,000 animals that needs to be fed.

That's a huge job.

It is a huge job.

Like kale just like with people, this is a health food.

So the same thing for animals?

Most a lot of animals don't like it, though.

I think it might be too bitter.

But they eat it.

I think a lot of people don't like kale either, but they eat it because they think they're going to get healthy.

And when I was back there in the kitchen, I saw you had herring, too.

That's from my home country, and I haven't seen a whole herring there for a long time.

It's important that we feed the herring whole.

We don't want to take any of the organs out because that's where we store all the vitamins and minerals, or that's where the fish stores all their vitamins and minerals.

So we want to make sure we offer it whole to any of the animals that eat it.

Which animals get herring?

Penguins, pelicans, sea lions.

They are the biggest herring consumers.

In my opinion.

They have the best pallets of all the animals.

The pantry here is also full of different kinds of food.

Almost every animal has a base diet of what we call nutritionally complete foods.

It has all the vitamins, minerals, fat, protein, fiber in it that they need for the day.

And then we have produce on top of it or hay.

With primates, we also have different sizes, different flavors, so that we can rotate those throughout the week as well, so they don't get bored of eating the same one every day.

It's just plant material.

If you would like to try one, you're welcome to.

Sure.

It's a little dry.

I wouldn't recommend it without perhaps a sauce or gravy to help it go down.

I get a little citrus in there.

Very good.

It's orange.

It's going to be tough.

You don't have to finish it.

I need that sauce.

Understanding my love for fish, herring in particular.

My next up is a visit to the penguin house.

Penguins and other large birds in this part of the Zoo have a diet that consists largely of fresh fish.

I can probably come up with some things that they would really appreciate here.

Obviously you're going to fry them now and make a little garlic aioli with them?

I wish we could, but unfortunately our birds are more partial to, like, sushi.

Most of us just come to the zoo and look at the animals without a clue to what goes into caring for them.

So each bird gets one fish, each king penguin gets one herring.

So we try to give the birds that are on a diet a smaller fish, but they're great.

These are also great.

Whenever, if a bird's under vet care and we have to give medication, we'll just slide those in there.

We're going to where no visitor has never gone before.

Okay, so you see the guys.

I already had breakfast.

Oh, we got a willing participant coming.

All righty, all right.

Who do we have here?

Hi.

Would you like a fish?

She's being a little shy This is Elmer.

Penguins are cute, but I'm not sure they appreciate my presence.

Even despite our shared appreciation for herring, Elmer loves they swallow the whole thing.

They swallow the whole thing.

Easy peasy.

They don't want to chew it or taste it.

Harvey.

Look what I got.

Look what I got.

Good boy.

Just so it gets different fish.

He bit my fingers.

He thought I had something.

Yeah, they'll nibble at them.

He's so he's our youngest bird.

His name is .. No, I mean, it didn't hurt me.

The people that work behind the scenes here must really love their jobs.

They prepare thoughtful meals for the animals, feeding them the things specific to their natural diets.

The mise en place that happens here every day is no different than what happens in the kitchens of your favorite restaurants, and for animals, no less.

Isn't that love?

The best part is they never leave a bad review online.

New things I can put on my resume got bit by a penguin, so I'm pretty happy about that.

I sat down with St. Louis Zoo director Michael Masick to talk about the mission of the Zoo and what makes it one of the best Zoos anywhere.

What are the ingredients for the best Zoo in America or the best Zoo in the world?

Because clearly this is an exceptional Zoo.

I think the ingredients are wonderful places for animals to live, animal welfare, and wonderful people.

So people always make the place.

And our team members are exceptional.

They're incredibly talented and they're incredibly passionate.

At 32 years ago, when I decided to come from Chicago, where I was working at another zoo, to our zoo here was because of the community support.

I knew about it even 32 years ago, and the community has never let us down.

Where do you go and have dinner?

Outside of the zoo?

Outside of the zoo, there's a lovely bistro near where I live, very close to here, called Louie.

Louie on Demun?

Yes.

We have enjoyed that.

It's great.

It's great.

Have you had the peaches yet with the prosciutto?

I have, yes.

We just had it the Sunday before last.

That's my favorite.

This has been a lot of fun.

But before I go, there is one last stop on my zoo tour that I couldn't pass up.

And this time I get to feed the animals myself.

What we're going to be highlighting today is our three reticulated giraffes These are three females we have in our herd.

So this first one coming up here, her name is Lily, the one behind her is Sukari, and the one furthest away is Ella.

She's a little more standoffish than the other one.

Just hold on kind of tight.

They're big, they're strong, so they might take that right from you.

They're probably not used to a Danish chef.

They're literally eating from my hand.

I always wanted to say that.

See, food is love for animals, too.

That's my language of love, too.

Yeah.

Who doesn't like to eat?

And I mean, sometimes I think animals are a lot more appreciative than people when you feed them.

I agree.

She's an eater of this one.

Yeah.

Lily will stay here all day long.

She's not too self conscious about it, though.

They're beautiful.

I made you a salad.

Not a Caesar salad, but ... thank you very much.

It was great.

It was great.

You're going to call me now, right?

Sh's going to get a reservation.

Such beautiful animals and a beautiful experience.

I'll never look at the Zoo the same again.

To think of Forest Park as just a park is misleading.

After the last couple of days, I realize there is many more layers to this place and its significance and how much of a treasure it really is.

I may have come here looking for the cliche of picnics and romantic walks, but straight away I realized that that wasn't the real story.

The significance of Forest Park is immeasurable, and it's kept alive in part by the work of the people that I talked to today from the St. Louis Art Museum, the Zoo, the Muni, Forest Park, Forever, and several others I haven't mentioned.

All of them impassioned about their slice of this place, focusing on preserving and maintaining this cultural cornerstone of not just St. Louis, but the greater Midwest and by some extension, the world.

The love that goes into all of these moving parts is something you can feel when you come here.

Maybe that's why there's 13 million visitors a year.

What I did today is create a little something out of the primate biscuits I got at the Zoo, corn puree underneath.

You have a little gravy here with sausage and bacon and clams.

And the primate biscuits is covered in a little bit of bone broth that I made, and then we garnish them with a little corn shoot.

Labradors.

Do they like food?

The more food you give them, the more you love them?

Is that right?

Bon appetite.

I guess they like it.

Was everything up to your liking, sir?

What about you?

No matter if it's raw herring or Sugarfire barbecue, when you're talking about Forest Park, food is still love.

Food is love.

Here's to the local restaurants, to the chefs, owner, operators, the staff the ones who love being in the weeds night after night when we go to work each morning.

That's who we have in mind.

From where we source our food to how we deliver it.

Here's to them, the ones who are out there cooking for us every day.

Restaurants are the heart of everything we do.

We are Performance Food Service.

Proudly supporting Food Is Love.

Support for food is Love comes from Natural Tableware, supplier of sustainable green alternatives to plastic tableware.

Support also comes from Moonrise Hotel, a boutique hotel located on the Delmar Loop in St. Louis.