Photography by Kevin A. Roberts
The Good Pie may have recently transferred from one university’s neighborhood to another, but it’s still anything but a classic college pizza joint. Mike Randolph first brought Neapolitan pizza to town in 2008 in midtown. Said pizza style is made according to a set of rules from the Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana that outline dough-making techniques, proper ingredients, and the use of a wood-burning oven with a very high temperature.
If the rules are followed to the letter (and number), the oven heats up to 900 degrees, meaning each pizza takes about two minutes to cook. The resulting pie—roughly round and lipped—is speckled with charred spots and is fluffy due to interior void spaces not unlike those in Indian naan, which is often cooked in a similar manner.
As with The Good Pie’s original location, one of the first things to catch your eye here is a wood fire beneath an ornate dome. The oven’s skin of blue 1-inch tiles is reminiscent of a shower you might see in a California-based episode of Mad Men. Metal tractor-seat bar stools and other design touches may keep your eyes occupied by more than your smartphone.
The printed menu features seven fixed pie varieties. At least one more is offered as a nightly special. More often than not, it’s more of a transcendental pie, as in the case of the scrambled-egg pizza offered on one of our visits. We couldn’t quite pull the trigger on that one, but our server gently nudged us toward another egg-enhanced offering: the mastunicola. This, too, has breakfast undertones, with diced cured pork belly and a fried egg as the main toppings, supplemented by shaved Parmigiano cheese and fresh sage. The blazing oven gives the egg an over-easy doneness, with the yolk spreading out into Jackson Pollock splashes when you cut the pie at the table. The salty mastunicola, enhanced by the dense pork and smoldering with sage, is as far away from a late-night munchies pizza as Jackson Pollock is from Thomas Kinkade.
A Margherita has perhaps the definitive combination of toppings, and The Good Pie rounds out the basil green and tomato red colors of the Italian flag with white from regular fresh mozzarella or the more glamorous mozzarella di bufala. The latter pie is $3.50 more and bears the designation D.O.P. (Denominazione d’Origine Protetta) to indicate the mozzarella is of authentic Italian origin. The buffalo mozzarella adds a delectable extra ooziness under the basil leaves and tomato.
Among small plates, the roasted olives are something you may not be used to, with the roasting process concentrating the flavor of each variety, similar to the way dehydration concentrates the flavor of fruit. The Good Pie also has an extensive bar and a short but commendable beer list, with a selection from local craft brewers.
For dessert, since basil plays such an important role in classic pizzas, we weren’t surprised to find that one of the rotating gelato selections was cinnamon basil. The spicy and floral herbaceous aromas and flavors combined in a perfect finale.
St. Louis has Chicago-style pizza, New York–style pizza, the pie that Imo’s built, and others. None of these are like The Good Pie’s Neapolitan pizza, though—and that’s a good thing.
The Bottom Line: This isn’t snarfing pizza. These are elegant, well-crafted pies—with craft beers to complement them.
6665 Delmar
University City
314-899-9221
Lunch and dinner Tue–Sun
Average Main Course: $14
Reservations: It’s a pizza place, so no.
Acoustics: Moderately loud
