Land of Oz

Before the days of PR spin, a fancy man in Oklahoma! sang, “I went to Kansas City on a Frid’y; by Satidday I larned a thing or two . . . .” Same holds true for tourists today.

Sure, you’ve heard the word about jazz and barbecue, but tap your toes, lick your fingers, and then poke into the one-of-a-kind museums, elite shopping ops, James Beard–contending restaurants, and avant art galleries that dot Kansas City’s distinct neighborhoods. Up to date? Way ahead of it.

The Country Club Plaza in springtime. Photo courtesy of KCADC

The city’s diverse enclaves are laid out like a shotgun house, strung along Main Street from the Missouri River south to Country Club Plaza, the world’s first (and arguably still the most enticing) master-planned outdoor shopping district.

Start, as Victorian visitors once did, at the river, basically downtown. Today it boasts City Market, where farmers vend their crops amid shops of many ethnic flavors. Early risers swarm to its neo-retro Succotash Bruncheonette for “pancakes with a smile,” fashioned with eyes of over-easys and a bacon-strip grin.

It’s also the site of the Arabia Steamboat Museum. Making its way from St. Louis in 1856, the Arabia hit a snag in the treacherous river and sank to the muddy bottom. Over the years, the river changed course, so when David Hawley and his family’s fanatical research paid off, they dug it out of a farmer’s field half a mile away. The cargo they laboriously cleaned is now displayed intact—the largest collection of pre–Civil War artifacts in the world. The paddleboat served (says Dave) as a UPS truck of its day, delivering French perfume, English porcelain, silk from China, barrels of Kentucky bourbon, jars of pickles (still tasty, Dave declares), 4,000 pairs of shoes, and everything needed to build a house. All of it is on display, even the skeleton of a pack mule, complete with saddle.

Blue Room performance venue of the American Jazz Museum. Photo courtesy of Ben Weddle

Further south lies the epicenter of KC’s vivid black community before desegregation. The iconic crossroads of 18th and Vine represented the closest a local could get to heaven without a halo—fifty jazz clubs crammed into four city blocks, the place where jam sessions got their start. The story is recounted in the American Jazz Museum through the recordings and artifacts of four greats who played here: Charlie Parker, Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, and Duke Ellington. The music continues to work its magic today in the adjoining Blue Room four nights a week, with jam sessions on weekends after midnight at the neighboring Mutual Musicians Foundation Hall.

At the nearby Street Hotel, fans rubbed elbows with those venerated jazz greats, who rubbed elbows with the equally idolized baseball heroes of the day. The story overlooked by the history books is laid out in the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, with its saga of segregated times when neither hotels nor cafés would serve the traveling players of the feisty league, formed in Kansas City in 1920, whose fans dressed in their Sunday best to cheer for their teams (as shown in a film narrated by James Earl Jones). The league faded after Jackie Robinson broke through the Major Leagues’ rigid color barrier.

What food writer Calvin Trillin calls the best restaurant—not in Kansas City, but the world—lies but a few blocks away. Arthur Bryant’s has been slow-smoking ribs over hickory since the 1930s. The short-order joint’s once-grime-caked walls are now lined with photos of admirers, from Presidents Truman to Clinton and film greats such as Robert Redford and Steven Spielberg. Join the line that perpetually snakes far along the sidewalk, then shout your order at the countermen (“half-slab no-sauce fries beans”) and count yourself lucky. But then, here in Kansas City, there are more than 100 pits at which to satisfy the primeval craving for ribs, brisket, and burnt ends. Ask any two Kansas Citians about barbecue and a heated discussion that goes on and on will ensue. This town is serious about its local cuisine.

Kansas City skyline. Photo by Kevin Venator

Lick your fingers and head next to Midtown, a growing enclave that mushrooms from Union Station, a grand, old, still-working railroad hub cum science museum. But the museum that grabs folks of every age and ilk by the heartstrings is the new National World War I Museum close by, the only museum in the nation to tell the story of “the war to end all wars.” At the museum, designed by Robert Appelbaum, creator of the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., visitors travel a circular route to learn the political, social, and economic spurs behind the war, America’s entry into it, and the 1918–20 postwar years of this first-ever global, mechanized war. The story is told through newsreels, recorded memories, timelines, artifacts, vivid propaganda posters, U boats, armored tanks, and grisly reproductions of life in the trenches. It’s in your face and profoundly moving.

KC Practicalities When to Go: Kansas City, 400 miles straight south of MSP, has a more temperate Midwest climate than ours, meaning warmer winters, hotter summers, and a longer spring and fall. Getting There: It’s a dull seven-plus-hour drive straight down I–35 or one of several ninety-minute nonstops on Northwest Airlines each day. Learning More: The region’s tourism arm is at visitkc.com or 800-767-7700.

Nearby, Crown Center is home to Hallmark, whose year-by-year displays of cards and ornamented Christmas trees are open to visitors. (A kid named Walt Disney got his start here.) Then mosey to the newly vibrant Crossroads district close at hand, home to sixty galleries and boutiques within one square mile, housed in once-gritty warehouses. Many are populated by ex-Hallmark creatives, and it’s show and tell at the madly popular First Friday open houses. Wander solo to discover one of a kinds such as the pottery studio at Archival Designs; Tomboy, offering locally designed women’s jeans; Blue Gallery, showcasing regional artists; Birdie’s, an elite undie haven with a panty-of-the-month club; and Christopher Elbow, artisanal chocolatier, whose flavors range from banana-curry and fleur de sel to Russian tea.

Crossroads’ dining finds include the vintage setting of 1924 Main—feast on red trout salved with grilled-grape butter or the thyme-roasted chicken in truffled oyster-mushroom jus—and Michael Smith, the award-snatching shrine to the namesake master chef’s creative combos (such as halibut paired with short ribs atop polenta or rib eye topped with a crispy poached egg naped with romesco sauce).

Crossroads’ über-trendiness was validated when the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art recently opened an outlet here. The original, near Country Club Plaza, is a roll call of twentieth-century luminaries and surrounds Café Sebastienne, where the kitchen art rivals that on the walls (lunch on a BLT of smoked bacon, Brie, heirloom tomatoes, and avocado mayo or a grilled veggie Napoleon spiked with goat cheese).

Where To Eat Arthur Bryant’s, 1727 Brooklyn Ave., 816-231-1123. For barbecue, also try Gates or Jack Stack. Bluestem, 900 Westport Rd., 816-561-1101 Bristol Seafood Grill, 51 E. 14th St., 816-448-6007 Café Sebastienne, 4420 Warwick Blvd., 816-561-7740 Michael Smith, 1900 Main St., 816-842-2202 1924 Main, 1924 Main St., 816-472-1924 Starker’s Reserve, 201 W. 47th St., 816-753-3565 Succotash (B/L only), 15 E. 3rd St., 816-421-2807

Venture two blocks farther to the Nelson–Atkins Museum of Art, a grand storehouse of art, from early Egyptian to today. A globally lauded new wing by architect Stephen Holl is a must-see and includes galleries dedicated to Noguchi and Siah Armajani as well as old-hats such as Warhol and Pollock.

After dark, the young and restless swarm back downtown to the new Power & Light District, an eight-block-and-counting entertainment arena boasting scores of bars circling an open-air concert venue, fringed (blessedly, some would say) by more sedate venues such as Bristol Seafood Grill, where standouts include chipotle-fueled shrimp enchiladas, scallops atop lemon-asparagus risotto dressed with fennel salad, and fresh catch from the oceans of the world.

The crowd is younger and more casual in the Westport neighborhood, where vintage brick buildings once outfitted pioneers heading westward and survived a fierce Civil War battle. Today the battle rages for a table at Bluestem, where eats include foie gras with Rainier cherries, followed by pork tenderloin with peaches in chorizo oil. Then pick up homemade ice cream treats at the iconic Murray’s.

Within walking distance (or a jog along the park or streambed), the fourteen-square-block Country Club Plaza represents Seville-on-the-plains, romantically dressed in Spanish tiles and fountains, with street musicians playing as shoppers patrol its stores. Seek sustenance not in the pervasive chains that have invaded, but in KC originals such as Starker’s Reserve, with bright Cal–Med décor that accents similarly shining fare such as almond-crusted rainbow trout with wild rice, local beans, oyster mushrooms, and lemon-garlic butter or a Berkshire pork duo of heirloom tomato-braised osso buco and grits with pork croquette atop sweet corn succotash.

Journalist Edward R. Murrow said it first: “If you want to see some sin, forget about Paris and go to Kansas City.” By Satidday, you’ll larn a thing or two.

Where To Stay The Raphael. This doyenne boutique hotel adjoining Country Club Plaza since 1927 is currently undergoing a tasteful renovation. Rooms start at $189. 800-821-5343 Aladdin opened in 1926 (Greta Garbo and Mickey Mantle stayed here) and is on the National Historic Register. It’s been redone in a whimsy of chartreuse, lipstick, and black and white. There’s free Internet, champagne on arrival, a day spa, and a martini loft. It’s walking distance to the Power & Light District. Rooms start at $135. 800-465-4329 President Kansas City is also on the National Register for its iconic forties décor, grand lobby, and Drum Room Lounge, where Frank Sinatra and the Rat Pack once hung out. It’s also walking distance to Power & Light. Rooms start at $149. 816-221-9490

Carla Waldemar is a Twin Cities–based food and travel writer.