In The News

No place like home at Shields Manor Bistro

Tucked into an 1850s house, Bistro serves elegant homestyle fare.

By LAUREN CHAPIN

The Kansas City Star

All's quiet on the western end of Main Street in downtown Platte City. The day's business is finished at the county courthouse, and all the shops and stores, save the Pool Hall, are closed.

Without neon or a garish road sign, there's not much to guide first-time customers to the doors of Shields Manor Bistro, a restaurant/home owned and operated by DeDe and Max Shields. Instead, for almost five years word of mouth has led customers to their doorstep, many traveling from Fort Leavenworth and beyond to dine in their parlor or den. The circa 1850s house is a simple, two-story white wood frame house punctuated by black shutters and a vintage tin roof. There's a pretty wrought-iron arbor, a brick courtyard with patio furniture and two urns, filled not with greenery but with corks from wine bottles. It is one of the few signs that a thriving restaurant has set down roots here.

DeDe, who describes herself as a businesswoman who loves to cook, is chef. Her husband, Max, is host, wine steward, maitre d' and pastry chef. The restaurant is open only three nights a week, and the menu is short: one appetizer, four to five entrees and three or four desserts.

The appetizer is always DeDe's blue cheese shrimp. Six 1-ounce shrimp were deftly sautéed and seasoned with a gloriously garlicky melted blue cheese sauce. Served in a salt-rimmed cobalt martini glass, the shrimp were lovely on their own, and even better dredged in the puddle of sauce that sank to the bottom of the glass.

Twice I ordered the steak au poivre, two thick filets bathing in an exquisite brandy cream sauce. All sorts of flavors and textures interacted: the sweet, tawny sauce, the husky spiciness and almost imperceptible crunch of the peppercorns, the steely flavor of the certified Angus beef.

Both times I was served chunky garlic mashed potatoes, homey ones that I swiped through the cream sauce. I ordered my poivre mild, preferring minimal heat to a blistered tongue. I was told by the waiter that Shields had to show restraint when peppering my filets; she likes the heat.

The skinny green beans, still with a bit of crunch to them, were sprinkled with flaked almonds. It was a lovely, upscale Midwestern meal, and both times I took home leftovers.

My friend ordered the pork tenderloin with raspberry-chipotle sauce. The thick, juicy slab was all pork should be: tender but not bland. The sauce, as pink as a cherry Popsicle, was sweet beneath a modest bit of heat. My friend ate every bite, including the black beans and rice spooned onto the plate.

Still, when Max came around with the dessert tray, we ordered. I tried the apple pie, made with Jonathan apples. The apples were soft and homey but baked so perfectly they held their shape. The pie was a little bit cinnamon-y, and the crust, which Max makes from scratch, was so delicate it flaked. It was a blue-ribbon pie.

On another visit my dad, a life-long Platte Countian, ordered the Platte County black bottom pie, a walnut and chocolate pie so rich it made me break a sweat. Most of the servers have been with the Shields family from the beginning, and they are genuine and comfortable working in the small rooms. But the environs may feel cramped to some, and the one bathroom is unisex. That same hominess also means that guests often linger.

The food, at once elegant but homestyle, reminds me of lovely dinner party fare, served by the most accomplished of self-taught chefs. Perhaps that is one of many reasons first-time guests become regulars and then, DeDe says, often turn into friends bearing gifts of wine, which she stores in the dormant fireplace in the parlor.

About the wine list
Like the menu, the wine list is short, and I recognized several favorite in the $30 to $50 price range, especially the Chumeia Pinot Noir and Zinfandel and the 2000 Hochar by Chateau Musar, made by Lebanese winemaker Serge G. Hochar.

During my second visit, my friend and I toasted fall with a glass of Codorniu brut Champagne, a Spanish Champagne with a yeasty note and lots of ebullience. It worked well with the shrimp, the tiny bubbles cleansing our palates of garlic and blue cheese. And then, in homage to Hochar, whom I met when he was visiting Kansas City several years ago, I ordered the Chateau Musar, made from grapes grown in the Bekaa Valley near Beirut.

Back then he had stories of harvesting grapes and making wine during wartime in the late 1980s, when his cellars served as bomb shelters. I wondered how he and the family vineyards were faring after the recent war between Israel and Hezbollah ended with a ceasefire, just before harvest was to begin.

Max decanted the wine for us during our salad course, which allowed the wine to breathe so that its flavors were enhanced. Slowly the wine opened, revealing a dusky, earthy nose. It was generous on our palates, with layers of flavors — cherry, fall spices, earth and leather. We loved this wine — its elegance, its complexity, its lingering finish. It matched this place and this food.

Silently I toasted Hochar and wished him and the region well.

shields manor bistro
121 Main St.
Platte City
(816) 858-5557