Deck Ovens
Deck ovens have slower cooking times than do wood-fired ovens, but the wait’s worth it: Extra minutes on the brick bottom ensure a crispy crust.
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Every Friday is Pizza Friday in Edwardsville. Fluffy California-style pizzas roll out of the brick oven. The house-made selection of six varieties is served from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., but arrive early, because quantities are limited.
Nothing comes closer to the Big Apple than the crisp-bottomed crust, heralded by many pizza aficionados as the best pie of any type in town, at this tiny University City storefront. Do not take this pizza to go, or you’ll miss that fresh-from-the-oven first bite.
Scratch-made dough is baked directly on bricks to provide a nutty quality and make the resulting rectangular slices extra crispy. A lunch buffet affords the opportunity to cherry-pick varieties fresh from the ovens—in both Florissant and St. Peters.
Old-school pizzeria spots like this dotted the U.S. before throngs of inferior chains arose. Since 1967, South City’s Pizza-A-Go-Go has hosted countless postgame celebrations.
From the empire that bore Eleven Eleven Mississippi and Vin de Set, PW was destined to be a hit. Its menu offers such unusual toppings as fat-free feta and capicola.
Wood-Burning Ovens
Hot-burning hardwood can reach 900 degrees, meaning that pizzas bake rapidly but require constant tending to ensure a nice charred flavor—not a burnt-to-a-crisp crust.
Stray from the simplicity of a Margherita and try one of the chef’s unusual offerings, such as the house-made shrimp, sausage, and mushroom pizza or the seasonal McDowell’s Golden Arcs, topped with butternut squash, sage, speck, Fontina, and honey.
Cardwell’s has paved the way for other wood-fired pizzas in St. Louis. Two pie varieties—cheese and a seasonal vegetable—are as consistent as everything else about the restaurant.
The place that produced the first Neapolitan pizzas in town still cranks out the best after moving to the Delmar Loop. The Caesar continues to rock, the craft beer flows plentifully, and the cocktails are killer.
Home baker–turned–pizzaiolo Scott Sandler’s spot near Soulard has 20 seats where lucky diners can watch him crank out vegetarian Neapolitan pizzas.
Pizzeria Mia
With a cook time of roughly six minutes at 650 degrees, these pies are not quite Neapolitan, not quite conventional. Kudos that the dome-shaped oven was faced with repurposed red bricks from the Central West End building’s recent renovation. 314-400-7706.
