St.
Louing
Failoni's Restaurant
A 1916 spot for brick-oven STL-style pizza
Recently, I saw pizzababble put Failoni’s as his number one pizza place in the whole city, so I had to check it out. I’ve tried a few other places from his recommendations like “Providence by the Slice” in Kansas City and it was quite good. I figure few people have tried as many St. Louis-style pizzas as ol’ pizzababble so it’s worth a try.
I was impressed to learn that the building has been in operation since 1916 under the Failoni name. They also make their pizzas in a brick oven, which feels unique and also very St. Louis.
I checked it out recently and we got toasted ravioli, salad, cheesy garlic bread, and two St. Louis-style pizzas. Overall, I thought it was fine. The toasted ravioli tasted like the default ones you get from most bars. The house salad was particularly strange to me - I tasted almost no vinegar in the salad dressing whatsoever, it tasted extremely sweet and sugary.
The pizzas were pretty good, I liked that the sauce was not overly sweet and didn’t have the artificial flavor I taste at the chain restaurants. The crust was nice and crispy - they clearly perfected the low hydration, cracker crust made with yeast. It tasted very similar to when I made a St. Louis-style pizza at home with a three-day ferment, except theirs was crispier due to the brick oven cook.
Overall, it was a decent STL-style pizza, but it’s not in my top five. The patio was nice and it would be a good place to bring a few friends and have a drink.