SLeeK to Close: Bleak Day for St. Louis Steak Hair Lovers

Hey, wait a minute! That's not Hubert Keller! Never mind.

​Credit the Post-Dispatch's Evan Benn with the scoop: SLeeK, the eye-buggingly pricey steak joint inside the Lumière Gambling Industrial Complex, is no more. Well, technically it still is, but if you want to order up the seven-course "Beef Around the World" meat-stravaganza, you'd better plunk down your $98 soon. As Benn reports, the restaurant has confirmed that it will close its doors after Monday, January 31.

Benn writes that chef Hubert Keller, the brains behind SLeeK, will continue to do business at his other Lumière joint, Burger Bar. So if you've got $60 burning a hole in your pocket and have a hankerin' for a Kobe beef burger with shaved truffles, you're still good.

Though Unreal's Grandma Mildred would say good riddance (Grandma, who liked to wax hyperbolic, had a term for restaurants like SLeeK; she called 'em "clip joints"), losing SLeeK is kind of a bummer. For one thing, it was nice to know that if on the off chance we won big at the casino -- kinda a longshot given that we've never placed a single bet at the casino, but still -- there'd be a place nearby where we could go blow a few grand on slabs of meat and way-marked-up, overhyped wine. And for another, you can't help but view this as a sign that St. Louis just isn't entitled to a place where a person can go blow a few grand on slabs of meat and way-marked-up, overhyped wine.

That said, we'll always have Hubert Keller's hair.

Quintessential Keller: The man, the coif.

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Marjorie Poore Productions

"You are looking at my hair, but you cannot see my shoes!"

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Marjorie Poore Productions

"This is a burger. A burger is not French. But I am French. I am Hubert Keller, I am French and my hair is French."

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Marjorie Poore Productions

"These are salmon. They have scales instead of hair. I am Hubert Keller. I have salmon and I have hair."

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Marjorie Poore Productions

"I am Hubert Keller. I am tan. I am a tan man. A tan man with hair. My hair is not tan. My hair is French."

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