Tom’s Place in Desoto has a unique past filled with gangsters, gambling and food starting as far back as 1921. Today, Tom’s Place is a little more upscale.

Lasse Sorensen and his wife Maryjane have owned Tom’s Place for the last 16 years. Sorensen, also the head chef at Tom’s Place, is originally from Denmark and received his master’s in culinary arts in Copenhagen, Denmark.

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Sorensen said he and his wife lived in California, though Maryjane’s family is originally from the Desoto area. Sorensen said he visited for a fishing trip and saw Tom’s Place for sale.

Five years had gone by, and Maryjane grew tired of California, and since the restaurant was still for sale, they moved to Desoto and bought the restaurant.

When the Sorensens bought Tom’s Place, they completely changed what the restaurant had been known for — other than gangsters — fried food. Lasse Sorensen said they do not serve the fried frog legs, chicken and every other fried dish the restaurant used to be known for.

Sorensen said they have several different dishes, but some of the favorites include Ahi tuna and beet salad. They create famous desserts like Crème brulee, tiramisu and chocolate soufflé. Sorensen’s restaurant also carries Kobe beef, which he said his distributor could not believe how much of it he sells. According to wisegeek.org, Kobe beef is said to be the best beef in the world.

“Gourmet chefs prize Kobe beef for its tenderness, flavor and amount of intramuscular fat, called marbling,” the site said.

Though many restaurants may sell Kobe-style beef products, only one line of cattle are actually called Kobe beef, the wagyu cattle, harvested in the Kobe region of Japan. Sorensen said Kobe beef steaks are around $60.

Tom’s Place has been ranked as a five-star restaurant for the last 10 years.

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“The North American Restaurant Association … they send a person around to restaurants and they check restaurants periodically. The first time they were here, we had a perfect score,” Sorensen said.

Sorensen said a lot of work goes into receiving a five-star rating, and also luck. He said the kitchen and staff have to be doing a good job and the person from the association has to be in a good mood. The mood of the restaurant, even the music has to be just right at the time of inspection.

Sorensen has been on the culinary Olympic team of Denmark three times and has won the world championship of pastry chefs in 1987. Sorensen said those competitions have taught him about how judging and inspecting works. He even compared it to a baseball game, saying many things could go wrong, but everything has to go right in that one moment.

Sorensen said they make all of their dishes from scratch, and because of that, they can cater to people’s wishes. He said he has people call and ask if he can make them something they had on vacation in Hawaii, or if he can make a vegetarian dish, and if he can get the ingredients, he can make it.

One thing they did not change over the years was the name. Sorensen said he wanted to change the name of Tom’s Place to Lessar Faire, which is French for “let it be,” but Sorensen’s wife said she believed it would be a bad idea to change the name of the restaurant people had known since the 1920s.

The original owner of Tom’s Place was Tom Endsley, who was known for his fried frog legs and friend chicken and secretly known for his alcohol during the prohibition, according to IllinoisHistory.com. Sorensen said he has been told several stories over the years, but said he has no way of verifying any of them.

Sorensen said under prohibition, Endsley went to jail, but successfully ran the business while in jail with help from others.

“When he came out [of jail], he ran for county sheriff and won. So that’s kind of only in America can you do that. Go to jail and come out and run for county sheriff,” Sorensen said.

Sorensen said he has also heard that Tom’s restaurant was connected with the mafia in Chicago. Tom’s Place was the halfway point for Al Capone and John Dillinger, who were running sugarcane from New Orleans to Chicago to make alcohol during the prohibition.

“This would be their safe haven,” Sorensen said. “So they have a lot of history here.”

According to legend, Endsley owned a large mahogany table and lost it gambling to Dillinger in a card game. The story is that Endlsey actually lost Tom’s Place, but Dillinger said he would just take the table instead. The story continues with Dillinger bringing the table to Chicago, where he lost it gambling to Al Capone, who then lost it to a doctor from southern Illinois. The table is believed to be in southern Illinois today.

“People would tell us that there used to be a gas station here and you could pull up and ask for an orange sodie and you would get beer during prohibition, but other people would swear there’s never been a gas station here because there would be documentation,” Sorensen said.

Sorensen said he has always thought it would be fun to write a book one day on the history of Tom’s Place, but it is hard to find out what really happened there.

“I think that people had such a good time up here over the years and they drank a lot while they were here,” Sorenson said. “So their imagination ran rampant while they were here.”

Sorenson said though he has regulars, he has many customers from all over because of his listing in the Wine Spectators magazine, which according to their website, has a little less than 3 million readers.

He said he started Wine Bar Fridays a couple years ago, aimed at the college students. Customers get three glasses of wine and three small dishes for $30, but he said not many students have taken advantage of the special.