The Cordish Companies - James Beard Award-Winning Chef Kevin Nashan Opens The Clydesdale at Ballpark Village

Ballpark Village is betting that a beloved hometown chef will provide its next culinary chapter: James Beard Award-winning chef Kevin Nashan has partnered with Live! Hospitality & Entertainment to open The Clydesdale (601 Clark), which partially occupies the ground floor of the Budweiser Brew House building along Clark Avenue, across from Busch Stadium.

On August 27, the restaurant will host a private cocktail reception-complete with its first beer delivery at 5:30 p.m. via a beer wagon pulled by Anheuser-Busch's iconic eight-pony Clydesdale hitch-before opening to the public at 8 p.m.

For Nashan, the project came together fast. "The Live! team at Ballpark Village wanted to make a change-to bring in someone local offering something different than what was already there," he tells SLM. "Once we started talking about the modern tavern concept, it all came together organically-and quickly, literally in a couple of months."

Here's what to know before you go.

The Concept & Atmosphere

As the name conveys, Nashan and the Live! team wanted to embrace the building's Anheuser-Busch heritage rather than compete with it. "The idea was to piggyback on the existing A-B presence and add to it with a name like The Clydesdale," he says. "I hope the restaurant becomes as iconic as they are."

Rather than creating another sports bar, Nashan is aiming for something with broader appeal: a polished but approachable restaurant where guests can grab a burger before Cardinals games, linger over a grilled trout after a concert, or enjoy a date night when Busch stadium is idle.

"The modern tavern idea is perceived as being more upscale, yet affordable and approachable," he says. Think of it as bar-and-grill fare elevated with better ingredients, sharper execution, and more restaurant-worthy entrées.

The restaurant seats about 100 indoors, with another 40-50 seats on a stadium-facing patio equipped with an indoor-outdoor bar that's expected to become one of the space's biggest draws. Inside, the existing dark wood finishes and the upholstered surfaces have been upgraded. The resulting vibe feels "way more warm and restaurant-y and less sports bar," Nashan says.

The restaurant occupies the first floor of the three-story, 25,000-square-foot building. The upper two floors include the existing Crown Room event space and Rooftop Bud Deck, where executive chef Matt Duffin plans to offer house-made brats and sausages for the 2027 baseball season. Both upper floors have their own outdoor components and are slated to be reactivated as private event spaces by next spring. Nashan's team will ultimately operate all three levels.

The Food

While The Clydesdale marks Nashan's first Ballpark Village project, regulars at Peacemaker Lobster & Crab Co. will immediately recognize a few signature items. A seafood program anchors the menu, featuring oysters, smoked trout, caviar, and a jumbo shrimp cocktail made with fresh shrimp, which is still a rarity in St. Louis. Those items also come together in the Crown Tower, a grand seafood presentation that combines all of the above.

Beyond the raw bar, appetizers include house-made sausages and pickles with soft pretzel sticks, hush puppies, chicken wings tossed in brown sugar Buffalo sauce, P.E.I. mussels in coconut-green curry broth, crispy calamari, lobster bisque, and house-made potato chips topped with caviar and crème fraîche.

Not wanting to spark "burger wars," Nashan created two distinct options: Clyde's Burger, an 8-ounce Wagyu blend thick burger, and the Village Burger, a double-patty Wagyu smashburger with its own bun and sauce. Other sandwich options include crispy (or grilled) hot chicken and an Italian beef on a hoagie roll. Burgers and sandwiches will run $17-$19.

Fresh pastas include mezze rigatoni, mafaldine with spicy Italian sausage, and squid ink bucatini loaded with shrimp, calamari, mussels, and lump crab.

"We didn't want to delve too deeply into sandwiches, pastas, and barbecue," Nashan says. "We have neighbors that we respect that are doing a fine job with those."

Entrées include prime sirloin steak frites with house-made, double-cooked beef tallow fries, a grilled Newman Farms pork chop, seared sea scallops, and whole roasted trout.

Desserts range from a tasting of local ice cream to peach cobbler and a gooey butter cake gussied up with pretzel cream, bacon, and chocolate sauce.

The beverage program remains beer-forward, in keeping with the building's heritage, but with a greater emphasis on craft selections than previous concepts. Cocktails, Nashan says, will be "straight ahead but very fun."

Nashan and executive chef Matt Duffin (formerly of Cardwell's, Bolyard's Meat & Provisions, and pop-up dinner events, including the Friends with Benefits Supper Club) developed the drink menu. Joe Shirley, corporate chef for Live! Hospitality & Entertainment, and Phil Dikeman, ballpark chef for Live!, are also playing major roles.

"Phil has been at Ballpark Village since Day 1," Nashan says, "so he knows the BPV customer better than anyone.

"I've been a sponge" he adds. "I've been playing follow-the-leader behind these guys. I've long believed in the 'it takes a village' mentality. This project is a perfect example."

Read the full article on The St. Louis Magazine here.