Lou Rook turns country-style eatery into smoking Gunn's

Headnote

UNDER THE TOQUE

Back in the day, Lou Rook used to hang out at Annie Gunn's and its accompanying Smoke House Market, a country-style restaurant and large gourmet store in Chesterfield, Mo., that specializes in house-- smoked meats and fish. Owners Thom and Jane Sehnert hired him 10 years ago and he has brought the restaurant portion of the business to a higher level during that tenure. He also has helped to make it one of the most popular destination restaurants in the area.

The Sehnerts opened the 100-seat restaurant in 1990 to meet requests from market customers who wanted to try its meats and other products but didn't want to cook them at home. A devastating flood in 1993 closed the business for seven months, but it reopened and came back strong with Rook on board.

Rook previously apprenticed under chef Marcel Desaulniers at The Trellis in Williamsburg, Va., before moving back to his native St. Louis area.

Title: executive chef and general manager, Annie Gunn's, Chesterfield, Mo.

Birth date: Aug. 26,1963

Hometown: Wood River, Ill.

Education: associates degree in culinary arts from the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, N.Y.

Career highlights: Organizing a Missouri winery dinner for the state senate; teaching at Midwest cooking schools; working for Annie Gunn's; working with his dad in the kitchen at Annie Gunn's

When did you first become interested in the restaurant business?

My family bought an old-fashioned root-- beer stand when I was 10, and I...