Lauren Treat

Lauren Treat is the creator behind @stlouisfoodie — a St. Louis millennial mom who describes herself as a food lover, not a critic. She started the account in 2014 and shifted into short-form restaurant videos in 2020, building a following of more than 57,000 across Instagram and TikTok. Her beat is the full metro: St. Louis city and county, St. Charles, University City, Creve Coeur, Chesterfield, Florissant, and across the river into Granite City, Illinois — with a clear mission to build restaurants up rather than tear them down.

Her Social Foodie map reads like a tour of how St. Louis actually eats. Top picks include Exotic Snack Guys in Richmond Heights for international snacks she called a must visit, Camelia in Des Peres ("OBSESSED"), Garden Variety Deli, Umami Seasons Hotpot in University City, Seoul Garden in Creve Coeur, and The Foundry Bakery in Maryland Heights. French pastry at La Pâtisserie Paris in St. Charles, Uyghur cooking at Afandi Kitchen in Chesterfield, Syrian–Mediterranean at Layali Halab, Vietnamese at DD Mau, and Taiwanese, Korean, Japanese, Indian, Mexican, and Turkish spots all get equal attention — a portrait of a region whose best eating rarely stops at toasted ravioli.

Lauren often opens by telling you exactly where something lives — "here's a place you can find…" — then walks through the order on camera with the address pinned so you can go. Verdicts land as plain-spoken reactions ("life-changing," "hidden gem," "worth the hype") instead of a scorecard, and she regularly digs into the people behind the plate, from immigrant owners to women-run cafés. Add her as a fave on Social Foodie to navigate St. Louis restaurants the way a local who has been documenting them for years would.