Ian Froeb's STL 100 lists his picks for the top restaurants in St. Louis. Here, we highlight the Italian and pizza restaurants from that list.
Italian
Acero
Acero • Italian, Tasting Menu
St. Louis hadn’t seen an Italian restaurant like Acero when it opened in 2007. Fifteen years later, while numerous excellent Italian restaurants have opened in the meantime, Acero still feels unique. Credit chef and owner Jim Fiala, whose vision of consistent excellence distinguishes both Acero and its older Clayton sibling, the Crossing. Sure, the thrilling tableside polenta presentation from Acero’s early days is long gone, but executive chef Andy Hirstein and his team have kept the menu both familiar and fresh, from the signature, now iconic egg ravioli to a seemingly straightforward mound of spaghetti chitarra Amatriciana that never fails to be revelatory in its simplicity. Another Fiala hallmark: The wine list is deep, and even the by-the-glass selection (or here, to be precise, by-the-quartino) yields unexpected pleasures. Inevitably, the ripple effects of the past two years have increased the cost of Acero’s four-course dinner. Nevertheless, at $58 per person, it is the smartest way to experience this essential restaurant.
📍 Where 7266 Manchester Road, Maplewood • More info 314-644-1790; acero-stl.com • Hours Dinner Tuesday-Saturday (closed Sunday-Monday) • Pricing $$$$
Gioia's Deli
Gioia's Deli • Deli, Italian, Sandwiches
At the beginning of the pandemic, Gioia’s Deli sold frozen pizzas featuring the iconic Hill restaurant’s signature hot salami as a topping. Owner Alex Donley called them his “payroll pizzas” for the lifeline they provided in those fraught early weeks. By June 2021, Gioia’s frozen pizzas were available for purchase at Schnucks supermarkets, and Donley had opened a commissary kitchen in Maryland Heights to meet the demand. (In an interview then, Donley said he had bought 15,000 label stickers for the pizza’s February 2021 retail launch: “I was like, ‘Oh, I’m gonna have these stickers for the next 15 years.’ And we just reordered more stickers.”) The pizzas are just the latest example of how Gioia’s has managed ever-changing dining trends — and, in the pandemic, an unprecedented crisis — while staying true to the identity that has won it lifelong fans for more than a century. Meanwhile, those of us who needed a classic hot salami sandwich as a momentary lifeline during the pandemic’s peak could turn to the Hill location’s walk-up window.
📍 Where 1934 Macklind Avenue • More info 314-776-9410; gioiasdeli.com • Hours 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Monday-Saturday (closed Sunday) • Pricing $
📍 Where 623 North New Ballas Road, Creve Coeur • More info 314-776-9410; gioiasdeli.com • Hours 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Monday-Saturday (closed Sunday) • Pricing $
J. Devoti Trattoria
J. Devoti Trattoria • Contemporary, Italian, Pizza, Tasting Menu
I hesitate to recommend a specific dish at J. Devoti Trattoria. Anthony Devoti, the chef and owner, actually follows the farm-to-table mission and from-scratch ethos others love to discuss. His menus change often, even daily, and when I have honored his original restaurant, Five Bistro, and now its successor, J. Devoti, on this list, I have taken snapshots: empanadas with lamb confit one year, prawns with housemade kimchi another, lamb chops with braised white beans and chanterelles in 2020. But in this pizza-mad town, we don’t talk enough about Devoti’s pies. For Devoti, the crust is the most important part. Drawing on his experience in baking (excellent) bread, he ferments the dough for at least 24 hours and then bakes it in a stone oven. The pizza isn’t Neapolitan, but it is comparable in its balance of airiness, chew and tang. Devoti keeps the pies simple: an uncooked sauce of local tomatoes in season (San Marzano when not), cheese and toppings in typical J. Devoti style, like the restaurant’s own salumi or mushrooms from local purveyor Mushrooms Naturally.
📍 Where 5100 Daggett Avenue • More info 314-773-5553; jdevoti.com • Hours Dinner Thursday-Sunday (closed Monday-Wednesday) • Pricing $$$-$$$$
Katie’s Pizza & Pasta Osteria
Katie’s Pizza & Pasta Osteria • Brunch, Italian, Pizza
Last spring, as I was just beginning to resume regular, non-takeout dining, I sat on the recently and impressively expanded patio of Katie’s Pizza & Pasta Osteria in Rock Hill for what would be my best meal yet at Katie Collier’s restaurant. The menu that May evening featured an honest-to-goodness fresh take on crudo (halibut with Aleppo pepper and tart kumquat), fried squash blossoms with a gooey, creamy heart of stracciatella and ricotta and, of course, wood-fired pizza, an elegant seasonal pairing of morels and ramps. Over the first year or so of the pandemic, I had reported on the ambitious and wildly successful pivot Collier and her husband, Ted, had made into frozen pizza. What a joy that night to see the fruits of that pivot: a bustling restaurant and a kitchen, overseen by Katie’s longtime executive chef, Jake Sanderson, allowed once again to thrive.
📍 Where 9568 Manchester Road, Rock Hill • More info 314-942-6555; katiespizzaandpasta.com • Hours Lunch and dinner daily, brunch Saturday-Sunday • Pricing $$$
📍Where 14171 Clayton Road, Town and Country • More info 636-220-3238; katiespizzaandpasta.com • Hours Lunch and dinner daily, brunch Saturday-Sunday • Pricing $$$
Little Fox
Little Fox • Contemporary, Italian
Little Fox is a deceptively modest name for the restaurant Mowgli and Craig Rivard have built in the city’s Fox Park neighborhood. Over the past 2½ years, in addition to copious local praise, Little Fox has received national attention from the New York Times (one of the 50 restaurants nationwide the paper was “most excited” about in 2021) and the James Beard Awards (Craig was a 2022 semifinalist for “Best Chef: Midwest”). But Little Fox doesn’t loom over you with the enormity of its buzz and accolades. This is still a neighborhood restaurant at heart, a place where you are equally thrilled to stop by the bar for a cocktail and ’nduja croquetas or to gather at the table for a multicourse feast of Ozark mushrooms, thinly sliced beef ribs goosed with Calabrian chiles, housemade cavatelli and the signature grilled half-chicken. Craig’s cooking is seasonal and broadly Italian, but the spirit of food and hospitality alike is sunny in every season. Little Fox’s name, if modest, is apt. This restaurant sneaks into your heart.
📍 Where 2800 Shenandoah Avenue • More info 314-553-9456; littlefoxstl.com • Hours Dinner Tuesday-Saturday (closed Sunday-Monday) • Pricing $$$
Louie
Louie • Contemporary, Italian
Even a great restaurant is fortunate to create one dish so immutable in its design and so beloved by regulars that it becomes known by the most generic term possible. The Chicken, say. Or the Pork Chop. At Louie, you can order the Chicken (roasted, with jus and rapini) and the Pork Chop (grilled, with shishito chiles and chermoula). You should probably order the Hummus for the table and — why not? — the Gnocco, too. I can’t think of another restaurant that has better embodied exactly what it wanted to be in style, service and substance from the beginning than Louie. Owner Matt McGuire, chef Sean Turner and their team have built a timeless restaurant, Italian in the particulars but universal in its appeal. Which is not to say the menu hasn’t evolved. A relatively new addition features grilled octopus over crispy potatoes and chickpeas, all of it sharpened by soppressata and Calabrian chiles. Or, as I imagine the dish will soon be known, the Octopus.
📍 Where 706 DeMun Avenue, Clayton • More info 314-300-8188; louiedemun.com • Hours Dinner Monday-Saturday (closed Sunday) • Pricing $$$
Noto Italian Restaurant
Noto Italian Restaurant • Italian, Pizza
Plan dinner weeks ahead, beg friends with reservations to let you tag along, squeeze yourself into the one open seat at the bar — seize any opportunity to visit Noto Italian Restaurant. Since opening in January 2020, and against pandemic headwinds, Kendele and Wayne Sieve’s St. Peters restaurant has become one of the metro area’s toughest tables and its prime destination for Neapolitan pizza. Blitzed in Noto’s 1,000-degree, wood-fired oven, Wayne’s 32-hour-fermented dough transforms into an airy, gorgeously charred crust you should (and in some cases must) order uncut. Get here however you can, but the smart play is to dine with a group and pair a couple of Wayne’s pies with a few of executive chef Josh Poletti’s pastas, from simple, perfect tortellini en brodo to luxurious lobster ravioli. Leave room for cannoli or another of Kendele’s desserts. Her father previously operated J. Noto’s Bakery at this address, which makes Noto both one of the best restaurants to open in this young decade and the next chapter of a family legacy.
📍 Where 5105 Westwood Drive, St. Peters • More info 636-317–1143; notopizza.com • Hours Dinner Wednesday-Saturday (closed Sunday-Tuesday) • Pricing $$-$$$
O+O Pizza
O+O Pizza • Italian, Pizza
O+O Pizza doesn’t reimagine the pizzeria or the neighborhood Italian restaurant, but the latest venture from the owners of Webster Groves sensation Olive + Oak and its cafe spinoff the Clover and the Bee approaches this well-traveled terrain with refreshing vigor. Chef Mike Risk certainly knows the cuisine. Beginning as a teenager, he spent 12 formative years cooking at Trattoria Marcella. More recently, before the pandemic, he introduced his take on veal Parmesan and other classic Italian dishes to the Clover and the Bee dinner menu. At O+O Pizza, which opened in September 2020 in the original Olive + Oak space, Risk both refines and expands his approach. He stuffs handmade toasted ravioli with beef, pancetta tesa and fontina; bathes a strip steak in herb butter and colatura vinaigrette; marks corzetti with a custom-made octopus stamp and serves the coin-shaped pasta with grilled octopus in bone-marrow butter. Even the pizza finds its own niche, thin and crisp with a bit of a chew — not quite New York, not quite tavern-style.
📍 Where 102 West Lockwood Avenue, Webster Groves • More info 314-721-5422; oandopizza.oohosp.com • Hours Dinner daily • Pricing $$-$$$
Pastaria, Pastaria Deli & Wine
Pastaria, Pastaria Deli & Wine • Italian, Pizza, Sandwiches
Since opening 10 years ago, Pastaria has been the most broadly appealing of Gerard Craft’s restaurants, a place where a lively evening with friends can share the dining room with a romantic date at the table to the left and a family dinner at the table to the right. During the pandemic, Pastaria’s spirit grew even more capacious when Craft turned the adjacent storefront (previously his other Italian restaurant, Sardella) into Pastaria Deli & Wine, offering a selection of sandwiches alongside retail wine and other provisions. The sandwiches follow the template set by Pastaria’s pastas and wood-fired pizzas, familiar, even classic, but not hemmed in by tradition: tuna salad, roasted turkey with Calabrian-chile mayonnaise, Volpi Heritage prosciutto with giardiniera and lemon agrumato. Meanwhile, at Pastaria itself, where Craft and his team had the menu dialed in more or less from the beginning, the cooking has retained the careful technique and vibrant flavors of a new kitchen seeking to impress.
📍 Where Pastaria, 7734 Forsyth Boulevard, Clayton • More info 314-862-6603; eatpastaria.com/stlouis • Hours Dinner daily (closed Tuesday) • Pricing $$-$$$
📍 Where Pastaria Deli & Wine, 7734 Forsyth Boulevard, Clayton • More info 314-773-7755; pastariadeliwine.com • Hours Lunch Tuesday-Saturday (closed Sunday-Monday) • Pricing $
Pizza-a-Go-Go
Pizza-a-Go-Go • Italian, Pizza
A former boss turned me onto Pizza-a-Go-Go not quite two decades ago. The no-frills pizzeria has been around since 1967, but when you’re a transplant here, as I was circa 2003, you need someone to point you in the right direction — specifically to the squat Lindenwood Park building where hand-tossed dough is topped with tomato sauce, cheese and nothing fancier than Canadian bacon. A deck oven yields a thin crust with that trifecta of crisp, chew and golden-brown shade only a deck oven can produce. Frank LaFata founded Pizza-a-Go-Go on South Grand, moved the pizzeria to another spot on the same street in 1980 and relocated it to its current home in the late 1990s. His son, Paul, worked with him, and when I first started visiting, Paul would be tending to the kitchen while his father greeted diners from his seat in the dining room. Pizza-a-Go-Go fell out of my regular rotation for a while. No reason — just the way things go sometimes. Frank LaFata died in November 2020 at age 90. His son is still making Pizza-a-Go-Go’s perfect pizzas and still taking only cash or checks. If you know, you know. If you don’t, tell him I sent you.
📍 Where 6703 Scanlan Avenue • More info 314-781-1234; pizzaagogostl.wixsite.com/pizzaagogostl • Hours Dinner daily (closed Wednesday) • Pricing $
Pizzeria da Gloria
Pizzeria da Gloria • Italian, Pizza
Pizzeria da Gloria owner and pizzaiolo Joe Kurowski named the Bonci pizza at his Hill restaurant after the renowned Italian pizzaiolo Gabriele Bonci. Last decade, Kurowski took a master class with Bonci, “a big, bombastic personality,” he said in a 2021 interview, whose pizza is “like magic almost.” I know Bonci the pizzaiolo only by reputation, so I can’t say how Kurowski’s pies stack up against his, but I can say that Kurowski’s Bonci pizza casts its own spell. The very thin slices of roasted eggplant fanned across this vegan wood-fired pie convey such a depth of savory, smoky and ever so slightly sweet pleasure that you don’t miss or even think about cheese and meat. If you do miss cheese and meat, Pizzeria da Gloria also serves terrific pepperoni, housemade sausage and sausage-broccoli rabe pizzas. More than any one pie, what sets this restaurant apart is the crust, which Kurowski fires for three to four minutes between 650 and 700 degrees: naturally tangy, airy, lightly chewy, magic.
📍 Where 2024 Marconi Avenue • More info 314-833-3734; pizzeriadagloria.com • Hours Dinner Tuesday-Saturday, lunch Saturday (closed Sunday) • Pricing $$
Tony’s
Tony’s • Classic Fine Dining, Italian
Speculation that Tony’s might leave downtown had been swirling off and on for years when owner James Bommarito made it official in April 2020: The fine-dining institution was leaving Market Street for the new Centene Plaza C Tower in Clayton. Tony’s new location, which debuted in March 2021, is a stunning, split-level space with the more casual Anthony’s Bar upstairs and the formal dining room on the ground floor. (An enclosed patio is also now available.) The address has changed, and the décor has been refreshed, but maître d’ Ken Bollwerk still greets you inside the entrance, and longtime Tony’s diners will recognize many familiar faces among the captains and the rest of the front-of-house staff. The menu, too, is essentially unchanged under executive chefs Pete Fagan and Gerald Germain and pastry chef Helen Fletcher, the dishes both old-school and timeless (beef tenderloin tartare; the classic ravioli and other pastas; steaks, chops and grilled seafood)that wait for each next generation to catch back up again.
📍 Where 105 Carondelet Plaza, Clayton • More info 314-231-7007; tonysstlouis.com • Hours Dinner Tuesday-Saturday, lunch in Anthony’s Bar Monday-Friday (closed Sunday) • Pricing $$$$
Pizza
Elmwood, Pizza Champ
Elmwood, Pizza Champ • Contemporary, Pizza, Sandwiches, Wings
Pizza Champ, which as a standalone restaurant opened only in January, technically doesn’t qualify for this year’s STL 100. Pizza Champ as a concept, however, launched in summer 2020, when Adam Altnether and Chris Kelling introduced it as the pandemic pivot of their Maplewood restaurant Elmwood, one of 2019’s standout newcomers. I tried the pizza that August and could have guessed the duo had big plans for their pies. Altnether crafts a New York-style pizza with the ideal crust ratio of crispy to airy to chewy, with tang (the dough ferments for 48 hours) and blistered char. Pizza Champ rounds out its menu with chicken sandwiches, salads and wings, the hot Buffalo version of which is serious business. Meanwhile, Elmwood is on hiatus as of early April while Altnether and Kelling focus on Pizza Champ’s debut. As a pizza incubator, Elmwood is emblematic of how restaurateurs have navigated the pandemic. As a showcase for Altnether’s cooking and Kelling’s front-of-house acumen, Elmwood is a restaurant to anticipate anew.
Note: The opening month of Pizza Champ has been corrected.
📍 Where Elmwood, 2704 Sutton Boulevard, Maplewood • More info 314-261-4708; elmwoodstl.com • Hours On hiatus
📍 Where Pizza Champ, 2657 Lyle Avenue, Maplewood • More info pizzachampstl.com • Hours 2-8 p.m. Wednesday-Friday, noon-8 p.m. Saturday-Sunday (closed Monday-Tuesday) • Pricing $-$$
J. Devoti Trattoria
J. Devoti Trattoria • Contemporary, Italian, Pizza, Tasting Menu
I hesitate to recommend a specific dish at J. Devoti Trattoria. Anthony Devoti, the chef and owner, actually follows the farm-to-table mission and from-scratch ethos others love to discuss. His menus change often, even daily, and when I have honored his original restaurant, Five Bistro, and now its successor, J. Devoti, on this list, I have taken snapshots: empanadas with lamb confit one year, prawns with housemade kimchi another, lamb chops with braised white beans and chanterelles in 2020. But in this pizza-mad town, we don’t talk enough about Devoti’s pies. For Devoti, the crust is the most important part. Drawing on his experience in baking (excellent) bread, he ferments the dough for at least 24 hours and then bakes it in a stone oven. The pizza isn’t Neapolitan, but it is comparable in its balance of airiness, chew and tang. Devoti keeps the pies simple: an uncooked sauce of local tomatoes in season (San Marzano when not), cheese and toppings in typical J. Devoti style, like the restaurant’s own salumi or mushrooms from local purveyor Mushrooms Naturally.
📍 Where 5100 Daggett Avenue • More info 314-773-5553; jdevoti.com • Hours Dinner Thursday-Sunday (closed Monday-Wednesday) • Pricing $$$-$$$$
Katie’s Pizza & Pasta Osteria
Katie’s Pizza & Pasta Osteria • Brunch, Italian, Pizza
Last spring, as I was just beginning to resume regular, non-takeout dining, I sat on the recently and impressively expanded patio of Katie’s Pizza & Pasta Osteria in Rock Hill for what would be my best meal yet at Katie Collier’s restaurant. The menu that May evening featured an honest-to-goodness fresh take on crudo (halibut with Aleppo pepper and tart kumquat), fried squash blossoms with a gooey, creamy heart of stracciatella and ricotta and, of course, wood-fired pizza, an elegant seasonal pairing of morels and ramps. Over the first year or so of the pandemic, I had reported on the ambitious and wildly successful pivot Collier and her husband, Ted, had made into frozen pizza. What a joy that night to see the fruits of that pivot: a bustling restaurant and a kitchen, overseen by Katie’s longtime executive chef, Jake Sanderson, allowed once again to thrive.
📍 Where 9568 Manchester Road, Rock Hill • More info 314-942-6555; katiespizzaandpasta.com • Hours Lunch and dinner daily, brunch Saturday-Sunday • Pricing $$$
📍Where 14171 Clayton Road, Town and Country • More info 636-220-3238; katiespizzaandpasta.com • Hours Lunch and dinner daily, brunch Saturday-Sunday • Pricing $$$
Noto Italian Restaurant
Noto Italian Restaurant • Italian, Pizza
Plan dinner weeks ahead, beg friends with reservations to let you tag along, squeeze yourself into the one open seat at the bar — seize any opportunity to visit Noto Italian Restaurant. Since opening in January 2020, and against pandemic headwinds, Kendele and Wayne Sieve’s St. Peters restaurant has become one of the metro area’s toughest tables and its prime destination for Neapolitan pizza. Blitzed in Noto’s 1,000-degree, wood-fired oven, Wayne’s 32-hour-fermented dough transforms into an airy, gorgeously charred crust you should (and in some cases must) order uncut. Get here however you can, but the smart play is to dine with a group and pair a couple of Wayne’s pies with a few of executive chef Josh Poletti’s pastas, from simple, perfect tortellini en brodo to luxurious lobster ravioli. Leave room for cannoli or another of Kendele’s desserts. Her father previously operated J. Noto’s Bakery at this address, which makes Noto both one of the best restaurants to open in this young decade and the next chapter of a family legacy.
📍 Where 5105 Westwood Drive, St. Peters • More info 636-317–1143; notopizza.com • Hours Dinner Wednesday-Saturday (closed Sunday-Tuesday) • Pricing $$-$$$
O+O Pizza
O+O Pizza • Italian, Pizza
O+O Pizza doesn’t reimagine the pizzeria or the neighborhood Italian restaurant, but the latest venture from the owners of Webster Groves sensation Olive + Oak and its cafe spinoff the Clover and the Bee approaches this well-traveled terrain with refreshing vigor. Chef Mike Risk certainly knows the cuisine. Beginning as a teenager, he spent 12 formative years cooking at Trattoria Marcella. More recently, before the pandemic, he introduced his take on veal Parmesan and other classic Italian dishes to the Clover and the Bee dinner menu. At O+O Pizza, which opened in September 2020 in the original Olive + Oak space, Risk both refines and expands his approach. He stuffs handmade toasted ravioli with beef, pancetta tesa and fontina; bathes a strip steak in herb butter and colatura vinaigrette; marks corzetti with a custom-made octopus stamp and serves the coin-shaped pasta with grilled octopus in bone-marrow butter. Even the pizza finds its own niche, thin and crisp with a bit of a chew — not quite New York, not quite tavern-style.
📍 Where 102 West Lockwood Avenue, Webster Groves • More info 314-721-5422; oandopizza.oohosp.com • Hours Dinner daily • Pricing $$-$$$
Pastaria, Pastaria Deli & Wine
Pastaria, Pastaria Deli & Wine • Italian, Pizza, Sandwiches
Since opening 10 years ago, Pastaria has been the most broadly appealing of Gerard Craft’s restaurants, a place where a lively evening with friends can share the dining room with a romantic date at the table to the left and a family dinner at the table to the right. During the pandemic, Pastaria’s spirit grew even more capacious when Craft turned the adjacent storefront (previously his other Italian restaurant, Sardella) into Pastaria Deli & Wine, offering a selection of sandwiches alongside retail wine and other provisions. The sandwiches follow the template set by Pastaria’s pastas and wood-fired pizzas, familiar, even classic, but not hemmed in by tradition: tuna salad, roasted turkey with Calabrian-chile mayonnaise, Volpi Heritage prosciutto with giardiniera and lemon agrumato. Meanwhile, at Pastaria itself, where Craft and his team had the menu dialed in more or less from the beginning, the cooking has retained the careful technique and vibrant flavors of a new kitchen seeking to impress.
📍 Where Pastaria, 7734 Forsyth Boulevard, Clayton • More info 314-862-6603; eatpastaria.com/stlouis • Hours Dinner daily (closed Tuesday) • Pricing $$-$$$
📍 Where Pastaria Deli & Wine, 7734 Forsyth Boulevard, Clayton • More info 314-773-7755; pastariadeliwine.com • Hours Lunch Tuesday-Saturday (closed Sunday-Monday) • Pricing $
Pizza-a-Go-Go
Pizza-a-Go-Go • Italian, Pizza
A former boss turned me onto Pizza-a-Go-Go not quite two decades ago. The no-frills pizzeria has been around since 1967, but when you’re a transplant here, as I was circa 2003, you need someone to point you in the right direction — specifically to the squat Lindenwood Park building where hand-tossed dough is topped with tomato sauce, cheese and nothing fancier than Canadian bacon. A deck oven yields a thin crust with that trifecta of crisp, chew and golden-brown shade only a deck oven can produce. Frank LaFata founded Pizza-a-Go-Go on South Grand, moved the pizzeria to another spot on the same street in 1980 and relocated it to its current home in the late 1990s. His son, Paul, worked with him, and when I first started visiting, Paul would be tending to the kitchen while his father greeted diners from his seat in the dining room. Pizza-a-Go-Go fell out of my regular rotation for a while. No reason — just the way things go sometimes. Frank LaFata died in November 2020 at age 90. His son is still making Pizza-a-Go-Go’s perfect pizzas and still taking only cash or checks. If you know, you know. If you don’t, tell him I sent you.
📍 Where 6703 Scanlan Avenue • More info 314-781-1234; pizzaagogostl.wixsite.com/pizzaagogostl • Hours Dinner daily (closed Wednesday) • Pricing $
Pizzeria da Gloria
Pizzeria da Gloria • Italian, Pizza
Pizzeria da Gloria owner and pizzaiolo Joe Kurowski named the Bonci pizza at his Hill restaurant after the renowned Italian pizzaiolo Gabriele Bonci. Last decade, Kurowski took a master class with Bonci, “a big, bombastic personality,” he said in a 2021 interview, whose pizza is “like magic almost.” I know Bonci the pizzaiolo only by reputation, so I can’t say how Kurowski’s pies stack up against his, but I can say that Kurowski’s Bonci pizza casts its own spell. The very thin slices of roasted eggplant fanned across this vegan wood-fired pie convey such a depth of savory, smoky and ever so slightly sweet pleasure that you don’t miss or even think about cheese and meat. If you do miss cheese and meat, Pizzeria da Gloria also serves terrific pepperoni, housemade sausage and sausage-broccoli rabe pizzas. More than any one pie, what sets this restaurant apart is the crust, which Kurowski fires for three to four minutes between 650 and 700 degrees: naturally tangy, airy, lightly chewy, magic.
📍 Where 2024 Marconi Avenue • More info 314-833-3734; pizzeriadagloria.com • Hours Dinner Tuesday-Saturday, lunch Saturday (closed Sunday) • Pricing $$
Union Loafers
Union Loafers • Bakery & Desserts, Contemporary, Pizza, Sandwiches
You don’t need more evidence why Union Loafers has become St. Louis’ premier bread bakery. But consider that when Pastaria — a restaurant that knows a little something about dough — opened sandwich spinoff Pastaria Deli & Wine in 2020, it chose Union Loafers hoagie rolls for the bread. Those rolls make for a fine sandwich bread at Ted Wilson and Sean Netzer’s Union Loafers itself, supporting a rosy pile of rare roast beef with havarti, pickled peppers and the spicy-sharp house Bistro Sauce (the Bistro Beef). Or maybe you would prefer something sleeker, like the Toscano: salami and pecorino Toscano with the Bianca bread, the same base as the restaurant’s pizza rossa. Meanwhile, not only does Union Loafers serve some of the very best pizza in town, but its New York-ish pies are also well suited to takeout. If you want to eat the slices straight out of the box, I won’t tell. It’s been a helluva two years.
📍 Where 1629 Tower Grove Avenue • More info 314-833-6111; unionloafers.com • Hours Lunch and dinner Tuesday-Saturday (closed Sunday) • Pricing $-$$
Kendele Sieve, co-owner of Noto Italian Restaurant, grew up working with her father, Jasper Noto, at his bakery in St. Peters.
