Food History of St. Louis

Key eras

1764 to 1840s, the French river town

St. Louis was founded as a French fur-trading post in 1764, and that colonial heritage still shows in Soulard, whose farmers market dates to 1779 and ranks among the oldest west of the Mississippi. The early city ate off the river and the surrounding farms, and the French Catholic calendar shaped its food customs long before the German and Italian waves arrived.

1850s to 1900, the German brewing boom

Waves of German immigrants arrived from the 1840s and made St. Louis a brewing capital, with Anheuser-Busch founded in 1852 and a dense web of neighbourhood breweries. The Germans brought beer gardens, sausage, pretzels and bakery culture, and their lager-and-snack traditions still echo in spots like Gus' Pretzels and the modern Urban Chestnut Bierhall.

1904, the World's Fair

The 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition is woven into St. Louis food legend, with popular claims that the ice cream cone, iced tea and the hamburger on a bun were popularised there. The fair cemented the city's appetite for novelty and showmanship at a moment when it was among the largest in the country.

1920s to 1950s, the Italian Hill

Italian immigrants, many from Lombardy and Sicily, settled the neighbourhood known as The Hill around clay mines and the brick industry. Their groceries, bakeries and restaurants gave St. Louis toasted ravioli, a breaded-and-fried local invention, plus the salumerias and red-sauce rooms that still define the area. Baseball stars Yogi Berra and Joe Garagiola grew up on its streets.

1990s to today, the Bosnian wave and a new generation

St. Louis took in tens of thousands of Bosnian refugees in the 1990s, building the largest Bosnian community outside Bosnia, centred on Bevo Mill, where cevapi and burek became local staples. In parallel, a new generation of chefs led by Gerard Craft, Kevin Nashan, the Gallinas and Nick Bognar pushed the city onto national lists in the 2010s and 2020s.

Immigrant influences

• German: Made St. Louis a 19th-century brewing capital, anchored by Anheuser-Busch, and brought beer gardens, sausage, pretzels and a deep bakery tradition that survives across the south side.
• Italian: Settled The Hill and gave the city toasted ravioli, salumerias like Volpi and a dense run of red-sauce restaurants and Italian groceries still going today.
• Bosnian: The 1990s refugee wave built the largest Bosnian population outside Bosnia, centred on Bevo Mill, bringing cevapi, burek, pljeskavica and somun to the south side.
• Vietnamese: Post-1975 arrivals opened the city's first Vietnamese kitchens, led by Mai Lee in 1985, and seeded the pho and bun spots that now line South Grand.
• Mexican: A growing Mexican community made Cherokee Street the city's taqueria corridor, with al pastor, tortas and aguas frescas anchoring La Calle Cherokee.

Signature innovations

• Toasted ravioli, breaded and deep-fried, invented on The Hill in the 1940s
• Provel cheese, a processed cheddar-Swiss-provolone blend unique to St. Louis pizza
• St. Louis-style pizza, cracker-thin and cut in squares as a tavern cut
• Gooey butter cake, a dense butter-sugar cake born of a baker's mistake
• The slinger, a late-night diner pile of eggs, hash browns, burger, chili and cheese
• St. Louis-style ribs, a rectangular spare-rib cut now used nationwide
• Frozen custard concretes, popularised by Ted Drewes on Route 66