Napoli Bros. Pizza and Pasta to debut in Chesterfield next spring

A casual Italian spinoff from the Café Napoli team, the restaurant is one of several new eateries at The Hub within The District in Chesterfield.

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Having launched four fine-dining Café Napoli restaurants (Café Napoli/Bar Napoli, Napoli 2, Napoli III, and Napoli Sea), the Pietoso family has shifted to a more casual format with its latest offering. Napoli Bros. Pizza and Pasta (17084 N. Outer Road, Suite 205) will be located in a prominent 4,800-square-foot space at The Hub at The District of St. Louis in Chesterfield. Founder Tony Pietoso recently told SLM that after opening a still-in-the-planning-stages Napoli IV, the less formal, family-oriented Napoli Bros. “may be the future for us.” Operated by Tony's sons, brothers Kye and Ande Pietoso, the restaurant is slated to open in March 2024.

The Menu

To help differentiate the brand in St. Louis, where pizza and pasta restaurants abound, the focal point will be a gas-assisted, coal-burning pizza oven. “To the best of our knowledge, Napoli Brothers will have the only coal-fired pizza in town,” says Ande, referencing the black-blistered, New Haven-style Neapolitan pies found predominantly on the Eastern seaboard. Manufactured by Marra Forni, the oven will be equipped with a revolving deck capable of producing a dozen 12-inch pizzas every two minutes.

What appealed to the brothers is the crispy texture of a coal oven pizza—and “the no-flop factor,” according to Kye. “This isn’t a pizza you fold." In addition, he says, “using coal accentuates flavors. The meats—the pepperoni and sausages—become a lot more pronounced, as do the clean, natural flavors of the vegetables.”

Ande notes that the most distinct difference in pizza ovens is the heat: standard firebrick (deck) ovens cook at 500–800 degrees, wood ovens at 700–900, and a coal oven cooks at 1,000 degrees. There are several differences between the more trendy wood- and less well-known coal-fired ovens. Whereas wood-fired pizzas tend to have a smokier taste, coal ovens impart a signature crispness, blistering, and charred flavor. Most coal ovens use anthracite coal because of its high carbon content, fewer impurities, and longer burn time than charcoal (although charcoal burns more cleanly). Coal ovens tend to be more expensive and larger in size than wood-burning ovens, but they can also produce more pizzas per hour. 

The menu's headliner will be a 12-inch pizza, similar to the ones served in Napoli. “When you’re in Italy, you order a pizza for yourself, not for the table,” says Ande. “A person can eat a 12-inch pie and not feel stuffed and bloated afterward. We also plan to maintain the Neapolitan tradition of being judicious with toppings, lest the crust become overwhelmed. You want to—you need to—taste this style of crust, not just create a pizza full of toppings.”

The dough recipe comes courtesy of their cousin Cristian Pietoso, who was born and raised in Florence and now owns several restaurants in the Cincinnati area, two of them pizza-themed. “It’s an old-family recipe, from our extended family in Italy,” Kye says. The pizza sauce was created a little closer to home. “We discovered that the tomato sauce at Café Napoli—which we obviously love—works well for pizza after a few herbs and spices are added. It was an easy sauce to tweak.”

The remainder of the menu is still in development. There will be approximately 30 items total, including a number of appetizers, salads, and entrées (including Bistecca alla Fiorentina plus several fresh fish). Similar to what’s offered at Napoli 3, Napoli Bros. will offer both dry and fresh pasta. “People tend to favor one or the other,” Kye says, “so our plan is to offer both. At Nap 3, the ratio is pretty much 50/50, so we’ll see what happens in Chesterfield.” The pasta options will be more straightforward than those featured at the other Napoli restaurants, such as cannelloni, gnocchi, lasagna, risotto, and a seafood-based pasta or two. (The same menu will be used at lunch and dinner, the only difference being that a smaller pasta portion will be served at lunch.) Several sandwiches will be part of the menu mix, with such favorites as chicken Parmesan, meatball, and caprese.

Due to the concept’s more casual nature, the menu is being designed for speed, with respective items to be served when ready, Kye says, adding that the prices at Napoli Bros. will be “as reasonable as today's market allows them to be” and that customers can expect the same level of quality they receive at the other Napoli restaurants. “Being more casual doesn’t mean we’re cutting corners,” he says.

Guests can expect 40 or so predominantly Italian wines, plus a respectable cocktail program and a handful of beers on draft, says Kye, who hopes to forge a relationship with his neighbors at 4 Hands Brewing Co.

The Atmosphere

The Hub is an apt descriptor. “There’s so much going on nearby,” Ande says. "4 Hands and Hi-Pointe Drive-In are at the hub of The Hub. Events at The Factory next door attract large numbers of potential customers throughout the week. And nearby attractions such as Top Golf, Main Event, and The Real Dill pickleball facility bring even more people to the area. In addition, Narwhal’s Crafted, the locally owned frozen cocktail emporium with two other locations in the metro area, has signed a letter of intent for the 3,000-square-foot space behind Napoli Bros., adding to the synergy. Two other adjacent restaurant spaces are still available.

“Being new and family-friendly, we thought that The Hub would be the perfect place to launch something more casual than what we’ve been doing,” Kye says. "Adults can have a cocktail or a beer on the patio and watch their kids kick around a ball or play games on the turf field. We liked that atmosphere because it’s so hard to find in St. Louis, a place where the kids are safely occupied and the parents are happy observers.”

Kathy Pietoso, the brothers' mother, who helped design the other Napoli locations, will oversee the restaurant's interior design and décor. Kye says the specifics are still being discussed but to expect “warm woods and greenery.” The restaurant is tentatively slated to open daily from 11 a.m.–10 p.m., staying open an hour later on weekends.

The Team

Kye and Ande were 5 and 8 years old, respectively, when their father opened Café Napoli in 1989, along with their mother and uncle, Fortunato. “If there wasn’t a babysitter, we’d go to work with my dad,” Kye recalls. “And if we got into trouble, we didn’t get grounded, we went to work. I remember my brother and I being given racks and racks of silverware to polish, which took us hours and hours. And then we’d sleep in the coatroom until my dad was ready to go home. That was the routine.”

Today, the 39-year-old Kye runs Napoli 3 and NapoIi Sea in St. Charles, while 42-year-old Ande works mostly in Clayton with Tony. Their cousin Chris oversees Napoli 2 in Town & Country. “Kye and I have always wanted to do a pizza place, but Napoli has always been associated with fine dining, which kept us from doing that,” says Ande. “But we both feel that the pizza in Napoli, Italy, is the best in the world, so when we finally did it, we knew that’s where our focus should be.”

Besides the brothers Pietoso, casino industry veteran Tim Shea has been brought on board as president of operations. “He knows structure and corporate systems, both of which really benefit a growing restaurant company like ours," says Ande, who hopes that Shea will help them continue to evolve and expand the Napoli brand.

“We have so many concepts in our heads that we think are viable, including one that we plan on doing," says Ande. "After that, we’ll have to see.”

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