Provel, t-ravs and toasted ravioli: the Midwest's most idiosyncratic plate.
St. Louis eats with a stubbornness that has produced a food vocabulary found nowhere else. Provel, a processed cheese blend of cheddar, Swiss and provolone, blankets the cracker-thin, tavern-cut pizza that Imo's made the city standard. Toasted ravioli, breaded and deep-fried, were born in the Italian kitchens of The Hill in the 1940s. Gooey butter cake came out of a baker's mistake and never left. The slinger keeps diner griddles busy past midnight, and pork steaks grilled in Maull's sauce define a backyard summer. Beyond the canon, the city carries the largest Bosnian population outside Bosnia, so cevapi and burek in Bevo Mill are as local as anything. A new generation, Vicia, Indo, Sado, has pushed St. Louis onto national lists without abandoning the toasted-ravioli soul of the place.
Every restaurant, cafe, market and bar we cover in St. Louis, pinned. Click a pin for the page.
The plates that define eating in St. Louis.
Toasted ravioli, or t-ravs, are meat-filled ravioli breaded and deep-fried until crisp, served with marinara for dipping. They are the defining St. Louis appetiser, born on The Hill.
Where: Charlie Gitto's On The Hill, Zia's On The Hill, STL Toasted, Anthonino's Taverna
Gooey butter cake is a dense, flat coffee cake with a sticky butter-and-sugar top, somewhere between a cake and a custard bar. It is a St. Louis bakery staple eaten any time of day.
Where: Park Avenue Coffee, Federhofer's Bakery, Missouri Baking Company
St. Louis-style pizza has a cracker-thin, unleavened crust topped with Provel, a processed cheese unique to the city, and is cut into squares known as the tavern cut.
Where: Imo's Pizza
The slinger is a late-night diner pile-up: two eggs over hash browns and a hamburger patty, smothered in chili and cheese and topped with raw onion. It is breakfast, dinner and a hangover cure in one.
Where: Courtesy Diner, Fleur STL, Southwest Diner
A concrete is frozen custard blended so thick with mix-ins that it holds a spoon upside down. Ted Drewes made it the St. Louis dessert, dense, cold and famously inverted at the window.
Where: Ted Drewes Frozen Custard
A pork steak is a thick cut of pork shoulder, grilled low over charcoal and braised in barbecue sauce, usually the local Maull's. It is the signature St. Louis backyard cookout dish.
Where: Sugarfire Smoke House
St. Louis-style ribs are spare ribs trimmed into a neat rectangular rack by removing the brisket bone and cartilage. The cut is now used nationwide but takes its name from this city.
Where: Pappy's Smokehouse, Salt + Smoke, Bogart's Smokehouse
Provel is a processed cheese unique to St. Louis, a blend of cheddar, Swiss and provolone with a low melting point that turns gooey and buttery rather than stringy. It defines local pizza.
Where: Imo's Pizza
Cevapi are small grilled beef-and-lamb sausages served in fluffy somun flatbread with raw onion and ajvar. They are the heart of St. Louis's large Bosnian food scene around Bevo Mill.
Where: Balkan Treat Box
A Gerber is an open-face sandwich of garlic bread topped with ham and Provel, broiled until the cheese turns gooey and golden. It is a St. Louis lunch-counter creation.
Where: Blues City Deli, Mom's Deli
Crispy snoots are pig snouts smoked and fried until they crackle like cracklin, a St. Louis barbecue tradition rooted in the city's African-American smokehouses.
An egg foo young patty (pork, beef, chicken or shrimp) griddled in a Chinese-American kitchen, then sandwiched between two slices of soft white bread with mayonnaise, dill pickles, lettuce, tomato and white onion.
Where: Blues City Deli
A handful of the places we send friends to when they are in St. Louis.
James Beard winner Gerard Craft's Clayton Italian runs on handmade pasta and wood-fired pizza in a busy room. The most reliable Italian table off The Hill.
Acero plates handmade pasta and a deep, off-the-beaten-path Italian wine list in Maplewood. It is the quiet, grown-up Italian dinner locals favour.
This DeMun bistro pairs a fiery pizza oven with a tight Italian menu, and its wood-oven roast chicken is among the best in the metro. A neighbourhood room.
Opened in 1985 and credited as the first Vietnamese restaurant in St. Louis, Mai Lee runs a vast menu of pho, bun and canh chua that sets the local standard.
A Benton Park gathering place for 25 years, Frazer's pairs a globe-trotting comfort menu with one of the better cocktail programmes on the south side.
A Hill institution tied to the toasted-ravioli origin story, Charlie Gitto's plates red-sauce Italian classics in a clubby room. The t-ravs draw first-timers.
St. Louis's historic Italian-American quarter, lined with red-sauce rooms, salumerias and bakeries, and the birthplace of toasted ravioli.
Best for: Italian, Toasted ravioli, Salumi
An elegant, walkable district of historic streets and Maryland Plaza, home to Vicia and the city's most ambitious upscale dining.
Best for: Fine dining, Cocktails, Cafes
A small, fast-rising neighbourhood near the Botanical Garden, home to Indo, Union Loafers and some of the city's most exciting newer kitchens.
Best for: Sushi, Bakeries, New American
A south-side neighbourhood of brick storefronts near the brewery, home to Sidney Street Cafe, the mosaic-covered Venice Cafe and Gus' Pretzels.
Best for: New American, Sandwiches, Bars
The French-colonial heart of the south side, built around the 1779 Soulard Farmers Market and a dense run of historic bars and BBQ.
Best for: Market, BBQ, Bars
Also: lasalle-park
A diverse south-city neighbourhood around Tower Grove Park, anchored by the international restaurant row of South Grand and a Saturday farmers market.
Best for: Vietnamese, Persian, Coffee
Also: tower-grove, tower-grove-east
Peak food season: April to June and September to November, when patios on The Hill and in the Grove are open and farmers markets run. Summer brings pork-steak season and frozen-custard lines.
Local dining hours: Lunch 11:00-14:00, dinner 17:00-21:00. Many Hill rooms and delis close Sundays and Mondays; BBQ joints sell out by mid-afternoon.
Tipping: Tipping is expected: 18 to 20 percent at sit-down restaurants and bars, a dollar or two per drink at the counter. Counter-service spots have a tip jar; rounding up is welcome.
St. Louis's signature dishes include Toasted ravioli, Gooey butter cake, St. Louis-style pizza, The slinger, Frozen custard concrete. See our signature dishes chapter for where to eat each.
TableJourney editors map St. Louis by district. The Hill, Central West End, Botanical Heights, Benton Park are among the strongest for food, each with its own guide.
Editor picks in St. Louis include Vicia, Pavilion, Sidney Street Cafe, plus the full fine dining chapter on TableJourney.
TableJourney covers 5 editor-picked food tours in St. Louis, with what each shows you and how much to budget.
TableJourney's St. Louis dietary chapter covers vegan, vegetarian, gluten_free, halal venues, each editor-picked with what to order and how to ask.