The Food Hall at City Foundry STL (3730 Foundry Way) now has a pizza spot: Fordo’s Killer Pizza, from James Beard Award winner Gerard Craft’s Niche Food Group.
The new concept will open inside the Midtown food hall today, joining 15 other kitchen concepts there. Craft has been involved with the curation of restaurants inside City Foundry STL since 2020, though Fordo’s is the first Niche Food Group restaurant to open in the space.
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A nod to Craft’s nickname (his middle name is Ford), Fordo’s is “all about having fun.” The new concept will offer unique takes on Neapolitan-style pizza, appetizers, gelato, and a selection of natural wines. Additional starters and salads will be introduced to the menu down the road.
Guests will immediately notice a mural created by artist Vidhya Nagarajanr, as well as an Italian Acunto wood-fired oven at the front of the restaurant. The oven’s dome is shorter than most traditional pizza ovens of the style, allowing its flames to shoot up and spread out, cooking the pizza evenly and quickly.
“We’ll always have some classic Italian pizzas but also some off-the-wall pizzas that will pull from other styles of cuisine of the world,” says Fordo’s executive chef, Joe Luckey (pictured above). As a chef for Niche Food Group since 2015, Luckey has worked in the kitchens of Taste, Brasserie, and both Pastaria locations, in Nashville and St. Louis.
Traditional pizzas on the menu to start include a margherita, pepperoni, and a four cheese. More creative offerings include a Shakshuka Pizza (with red pepper sauce, garlic, herbs and two sunnyside eggs) and Taco Pizza (with salsa verde, beans, pork carnitas, red onion, jalapeno, oaxaca cheese, cilantro, and lime). During opening week, Luckey recommends trying the Burrata Ramp-Pesto Pizza (with lemon agrumato oil, garlic, torn burrata, dollops of ramp pesto, pistachios, and thinly sliced mortadella).
Noteworthy starters include the Marinated Olives (Castelvetrano and Cerignola olives with citrus, herbs, and olive oil) and Charred Carrot Hummus (feta, herb salad, Calabrian chili powder, and pizza pita).
Fordo’s also has plans to collaborate on menu items with the other kitchen concepts inside the food hall and plans to kick things off with a “Margarita Double Down” promo from it and the Kitchen Bar during opening week: From today through this Sunday, guests who purchase any pizza at Fordo’s can bring it to the Kitchen Bar to receive a margarita for $6. (Tip: Pair the margarita with the Taco Pizza—a perfect pairing in time for Cinco de Mayo.)
Fordo’s will be open from 11 a.m.–7 p.m. Sundays and Mondays, 11 a.m.–8 p.m. Wednesdays and Thursdays, and 11 a.m.–9 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays.
