St. Louis residents/fans

Food and drink board.

Cunetto's has some great pasta dishes and salads. Really there are so many great spots on The Hill that you won't go wrong. Charlie Gittos and Zias are good as well, but not my personal favorite.

Lived in St Loser for three years. The memory of it makes me weep.

The Hill is mostly hype. As a neighborhood it’s marvellous, but the food is mostly dross. Charlie Gitto’s is the best restaurant in The Hill for dinner, but their officious, stuffy service and cramped dining room are not to all tastes. Lorenzo’s Trattoria is OK; Gian-Tony’s is barely OK; Cunetto’s (the biggest tourist trap) is garbage; Zia’s deserves prosecution. If you can go a few blocks outside The Hill (but still nearby), you can get vastly better Italian food at Trattoria Marcella (or Paul Manno’s way out in the burbs).

For lunch on The Hill the best-known sandwich shop (Amighetti’s) blows. But there is a great sandwich maker there: Gioia’s Deli. Don’t miss the house special, a housemade hogshead cheese they call salam de testa/”hot salami.”

There is very little nightlife in downtown St Louis, which is almost as evacuated and desolate as downtown Detroit. Out in the Central West End there’s a very good fancy-cocktail place called Taste - their cocktails please as much as they impress. Taste has a small menu of very good small plates as well. If I am ever again in St Louis for a night, I’m sure I’ll want to go there.

Check out Soulard. It’s an old, lovely neighborhood that reminds me of Georgetown in DC. (Except that Soulard is older.) For some reason this quaint, lovely old historic district gets mobbed like Bourbon Street on weekend nights. If you want to check out its nightlife, McGurk’s is a fine Irish-style pub.

I might as well mention that in all my time in St Louis, the only fine-dining meal I ever enjoyed was at The Crossing, in the wealthy suburb of Clayton (and it pains this city-lover/suburbs-hater to say it). Believe me, I tried every place that ever got any cred: Niche, Monarch, Sidney Street Cafe, Salt, Five Bistro, Franco, Vin de Set, Oceano Bistro, Harvest, Farmhaus, etc. All minor-league. But The Crossing was outstanding, and a bargain for the quality.

Finally: do not, under any circumstances, let anyone inflict “St Louis-style” pizza on you. It will be an unyeasted cracker covered in a processed cheese called Provel that looks, smells and tastes exactly like hot Elmer’s glue.