Review: Come to Peel Pizza for the giant wood-burning pizza oven, stay for the paella and carrot cake

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Photography by Kevin A. Roberts

Stare deeply into the mystical fires of the Peel pizza ovens. Gawk at the burning wood and feel the waves of heat emanating from the 900-degree chamber, capable of finishing a pizza in 90 seconds. Surrender to the flame.

Peel has been packing ’em in on the Illinois side, with locations in Edwardsville and O’Fallon. Now that the third location has bowed in Clayton, it’s easier for many of us to see what the fuss is about.   

Peel bakes its own bread, pastry dough, croutons, and desserts and brews its own beer, including about a dozen ales, IPAs, Witbiers, brown beers, and more. (At $9, a four-beer sampler satisfies multiple curiosities.) Short of keeping livestock in downtown Clayton, the eatery does just about everything in house.

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Photography by Kevin A. Roberts

Start with the table bread, a warm, crusty, porous ciabatta that comes with garlic-chive butter but needs nothing. Don’t ruin your appetite, though. Salad winners include a kale Caesar that’s improbably decadent. Dressing is massaged into every cranny of the greens, and a squirt of lemon juice takes it to the next level. Portions are absurdly large. The side salad feeds two, and the full could easily feed three. 

Wings are smoked, then finished in the oven and sauced. The super-juicy jumbo drummies and wings are coated in any of a dozen sauces, including pesto, maple–bourbon–black pepper, mango, and bacon jam.

Pizza is, of course, the force majeure. A wood-fired bubble-and-char crust, weighted with any of 30 topping combinations, is ferried to the diner with due alacrity. It must be eaten piping hot for the intended effect—and what an effect: This is ambrosial pizza. The shrimp scampi pizza has the butter-and-oil overload of the seafood dish, but in a pizza, that fulsomeness is cut by mozzarella, sun-dried tomatoes, and a doughy crust. The wild mushroom pizza could be none more ’shroomy. Cremini, shiitake, and oyster mushrooms enjoy a ménage in white truffle oil, Fontina, and Parmesan cream.

A wide selection of shared plates includes prosciutto involtini, warm three-bite buttons of prosciutto and melted Parmesan and mozzarella, braced in a coin of pastry and served with a trio of dipping sauces.

The paella is available only at the Clayton location. The dense pilaf of rice studded with toasted shrimp and small bits of chorizo should fight winter’s chill—but purists may balk. The rice is not the short bomba type, and the dish turned out oily on a recent visit. The cardinal sin might be the lack of an underlayer of crunchy, slightly charred rice, formed when a wide, thin paella pan is used.  

Dessert is no afterthought. Peel’s owners are pastry chefs, so they’re serious about sweets. The carrot cake is plated with fresh pineapple slices under a candy crust of bruléed brown sugar. 

The swank interior has high ceilings and relaxed neutral colors. Over in the corner, the ovens beckon. Just about everything on the menu pops out of them. Go ahead: Stare at the fire.

The Bottom Line Lavish attention to detail and a wood-fired oven make for superior pizza, wings, and salads.