 |
Pi Pizzeria in St.
Louis
-
The President's Favorite
When we travel through unknown territory like parts of
the Midwest, we usually reach a point where Cary needs pizza. Badly.
Sometimes it turns out well.
Our stop at Pi Pizzeria in St. Louis turned out well indeed.
Why Pi?
We remembered reading about Pi
when
President Obama was on the campaign trail, and reading that he liked
their pizza a lot. We read about it again when, some time after the
election, the owners were invited to the White House to make pizza for
the President. It seemed a logical place for us to stop and
try
the pizza - and to stop at their flaghship location, on Delmar.
There was only one possible hitch: we know that President Obama is a
pizza lover, but we're New Yorkers, and he's from Chicago.
Would our tastes collide?
Our
trusty GPS led us to Delmar and directly to Pi, which is just
down the
block from St. Louis' Regional Arts Center. Delmar is an artsy little
neighborhood, so it all made sense. Especially when we saw the Pi
symbol (pictured above).
What's Pi
like?
It's like, 3.14, Daddy-o. Yes, Pi has kind of a neo-beatnik
feel to
it, with the modern art surroundings, metal sculptures, and the goatee
sported by Eugene,
our waiter who probably isn't old enough to remember hippies, much less
beatniks
- but we digress.
The place serves about twenty different beers on tap. We don't drink,
but we still found the list impressive. Pi is also proud of
their
commitment to sustainability, "green living" and community service.
They use the green pizza box that we've read
and heard about but hadn't seen before.
How's the
pie at Pi Pizzeria?
First, here's the disclaimer: We're no judges of deep-dish pizza.
While we really enjoyed Lou
Malnati's in the Chicago area, we haven't had enough
deep-dish to critique the style.
We did ask about the deep-dish at Pi,
and Eugene told us that the use a cornmeal crust, which makes a
somewhat lighter pizza than the traditional Chicago style.
Fortunately for you (and us),
Pi also serves a thin crust pizza. And we're not
sure our standards apply to this pizza either!
As you may know, when we try out a new pizza place, we usually get a
basic dough-sauce-cheese pizza, to establish a baseline. At Pi Pizzeria, that
would have been the basis of their "Create Your Own Pi". We opted
instead to order a thin crust that we knew had been ordered by the
President's people.
We ordered the "Lincoln Park", a thin crust pizza topped with
mozzarella, garlic olive oil, zucchini, fresh tomatoes, feta and fresh
basil. As you can see, it looked delicious.
The crust was cracker-thin and had plenty of cornmeal in
the dough, which gave it an untraditional but sweetly tasty flavor.
The outer edge (too flat to be called a 'cornicione') was
crunchy almost to the point of being hard, but with the taste of the
dough the crunch factor worked in the pizza's favor. Although
it was wetter and less crunchy in the middle, the
thin mozzarella base under the other toppings (also untraditional, but
not without precedent) kept it from being soggy.
"It's different from regular pizza," said Lillian, "but I can see how
people can get hooked on it."
The generous mixture of fresh toppings blended together perfectly,
there was just the right
amount of cheese, and they certainly didn't skimp on the garlic-infused
olive oil. All in all, a delicious pizza in the Midwest!
Lillian noticed that we didn't even see a deep-dish pizza in the place
(until right before we left). We figure it's just too much food for a
workday lunch. The thin-crust was just right.
Unfortunately, we can't invite the Pi Pizzeria folks to make pizza for
us, so we'll have to wait until the next time we're in St. Louis to
taste their deep-dish and their other thin-crust pies!
Pi Pizzeria,
6144 Delmar Blvd, St. Lous, MO. 314-727-6633, three other locations and
one pizza truck.
Return
from
Pi Pizzeria to our Midwest
Pizzerias page
Return
from Pi Pizzeria
to the passion-4-pizza
homepage
|
|
|
