Restaurant Review: Onesto Pizza & Trattoria

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Onesto Pizza & Trattoria
5401 Finkman Ave. St. Louis 63109
"In The Heart of SOHA"
314 802 8883
www.onestopizza.com

Imagine, if you will, that H.G. Wells' fictional fancy of time travel became a reality and you wanted to take a trip to St. Louis in 1944 to sample a thin-crust style pizza. Unfortunately, you'd be out of luck, as we had no pizza parlors or restaurant serving any type of pizza until a year later. That first place, history will show, was Amadeo Fiore's Melrose Pizza in the basement of the now being rehabbed Melrose apartment building on Sarah at W. Pine. It was last known as Rossino's.

Now as you go back to the future and "Let your fingers do the walking" in the current St. Louis Yellow Pages you'll find some 312 listings for pizza places. This list does not include at least that many more restaurants offering pizza on their menu. So, the question is: Do we need another pizzeria? As a pizza-pie lover, my honest answer is YES! Yes, that is, if the pizza is authentico and hand-made with quality dough and toppings. Onesto, which is far more than just a purveyor of pizza, is a welcome addition to our legion of local pizza-makers. Onesto, which means honest in Italian, serves pies of the highest order, hand-tossed as you watch and crafted from 100% organic flour, 100% whole milk mozzarella, Italian olive oil and fresh-roasted tomato sauce. You're in a Provel-free zone at Onesto. Their artisan pizzas, which are closer to St. Louis style-thin crust pizza than to the chewier deep dish Chicago version, are baked to crispy perfection in a brick oven, nicknamed Johnny "The Man in Black" Cash, due to the oven's front being black. Onesto does one thicker Sicilian style pizza named The Godfather. You'll need to be patient as it takes more oven time. Prices range from $12.95 for a small 14" cheese to $26.95 for the Large 18"Gut Buster. The large pepperoni pizza we had on our most recent trip ran $17.95 and there was enough left over that it was our dinner the next night.

Chef Vito Racanelli, Jr., who hails from the Bronx, makes all Onesto's sauces and dressings from scratch using local fresh ingredients in an effort to offer the taste and aroma of a rustico style of home cooking. They list 32 pie toppings and 10 "specialty" pizzas. Onesto's dining room seats just 55 but they also offer take-out and delivery and a front patio for al fresco dining. On our three Onesto outings the smallish and high-decibel dining room remained filled, but since we were pre-warned by previous Onesto customers, we got there around 6 on each visit and were ushered right in. For the geographically challenged, locating Onesto might be a bit tricky, but worth it. It's in an area dubbed by local businesses as SOHA - SouthHampton. The restaurant faces Finkman Ave., named for yesteryear landowner Louis Finkman, and it's at the NW corner of Macklind Ave. just 2 blocks west of Hampton Ave. and three blocks north of Loughborough Ave. Coming from the west on I-44 take the Jamieson Ave. exit south to left on Loughborough, that's 27 blocks, or from I-55 go west on Loughborough to right on Macklind which is a block west of Gravois Rd.

For an appetizer I'd suggest Arancini, a rice based breaded and fried "ball" of Italian white rice, Parmesan cheese and parsley, crammed with tomato sauce, ground beef and peas and accompanied by Bolognese sauce. Order early as on our last trip they ran out of the item. The house salad has a very pleasant slightly sweet roasted garlic and basil dressing. On one visit I had a creamy pureed mushroom soup that had a unique earthy flavor and even though it was just 7 o'clock they had already sold all of the other zuppa of the day. 5 pasta dishes include lasagna with homemade pasta as well as fettucine ala Alfedo with homemade noodles. The fettucine is prepared el dente and served in a very rich and creamy Parmesan cheese sauce with a touch of nutmeg. It's similar to that which is served at Kemoll's. One lucky person at our table had The Eppi Roll and loved it. It's described as the Bronx version of Philadelphia's Stromboli with refreshingly sweet Italian sausage melded with green peppers, onions and mozzarella cheese tucked into braided pizza dough. It's a real buy at $5.95. Plus you'll find Stromboli and Calzone on the menu. And since Onesto is a family oriented restaurant they've created "Family style" salad and pasta dishes that serve four. These items include an exceptional Caesar salad and spaghetti with huge homemade meatballs in a savory marinara sauce. They could be a just bit more generous with the spaghetti and the pasta in general.

There are several sandwiches available, but not a meatball sandwich, which is something I hope they'll add. 3 Parmigiana dishes, eggplant, meatball and chicken, are served as either a sandwich or plate. And we strongly suggest the made-on-the-premises Tiramisu of which you get enough for 2 to share. Onesto has a real neighborhood feel to it, as if it had been there for years, while in reality they've been operating for only weeks. Since the 1920s the Onesto building, actually two store-fronts, housed places as varied as a Kroger store, Edward Clarke's Radio Repair shop, Berton Maurer dry-cleaners and Rudy Schulze photography. Onesto is a family restaurant and that translates to kids, and due to the lack of sound deadening materials it's a hard place to carry on a quiet conversation. If you're in a big rush; they're still working on some service issues. The positives of Onesto are plentiful and far overshadow any minor perceived negatives. And if there's ever a St. Louis pizza-off contest Onesto just might take the Blue Ribbon.

Hours
M-W-Th 11-10
F-Sa 11-10:30
Su 12n-9:30
Closed Tu - Accessible to all