A letter from Old Webster
Balkan Treat Box
Loryn and Edo Nalic's wood-fired pide, cevapi, and somun in Old Webster — a Best Chef: Midwest table with a food-truck heart
A food truck built around one wood-burning oven
Loryn Nalic — a St. Louis native with a pastry background — met Edo Nalic, a Bosnian refugee from Zvornik, at a restaurant where she was working as a food sales rep. When Edo received a deportation notice, they married. Loryn began cooking with Edo's aunt, absorbing the language of Balkan bread, ajvar, and grill work, and in 2013 traveled the Balkans alone for two months to learn from grandmothers in home kitchens.
They launched Balkan Treat Box as a food truck in 2017 built around a single wood-burning oven, then opened the Old Webster brick-and-mortar in February 2019.
Best Chef: Midwest, 2026
In June 2026 Loryn accepted the James Beard Award for Best Chef: Midwest at Chicago's Lyric Opera — the first St. Louis-area winner in that category in nearly a decade.
In her acceptance speech she noted that the restaurant helped reunite Edo's family after the Bosnian war. The couple runs a second concept, Telva at the Ridge, and launched full cocktail programs at both rooms on the heels of the win.
Old Webster, on Big Bend Boulevard
Old Webster is Webster Groves' walkable heart — a block of independent bookstores, coffee shops, and a Craftsman-era theater strung along Big Bend Boulevard.
Balkan Treat Box turned a modest storefront into a destination that pulls diners across the metro from Ladue and the Central West End, and made an outer-ring streetcar suburb a stop on the national food-writing map.
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The dishes that made Balkan Treat Box
Two-Handed Cheese Pide
Long, canoe-shaped wood-fired flatbread stuffed with molten cheese, kajmak, and ajvar, finished with fresh herbs — the dish Food & Wine credits with a St. Louis conversion.
Handmade Beef Cevapi
Small, hand-formed Bosnian beef sausages, grilled and tucked into fresh somun bread with raw onion and ajvar — a direct memory of Edo's home region.
Spit-Roasted Chicken Döner
Shaved to order from a vertical spit and layered onto somun with pickles and yogurt sauce — a slower-cooked, less-sweet cousin to Berlin's street version.
Good to know
Balkan Treat Box, answered
Is it a full-service restaurant?
Counter-service and casual — order at the register, grab a number, sit down. There's beer and wine but no waited table service.
When's the bread freshest?
It's baked continuously through the day; ask what came out of the oven most recently and order that.
When should I go?
Every day 11–8, including weekends. Peak crush is Friday and Saturday evening; midweek lunches are usually walk-in friendly.