Review: Del Pietro's in St. Louis

Whether you call it 30, trenta or XXX (the naughtiest of all Roman numerals), surviving three decades on this planet is an accomplishment. I made it, but against very long odds because of a large number of mind-numbingly idiotic acts my adolescent brain deemed to have been of acceptable risk levels at the time.

For a restaurant, though, it’s a far more daunting task. Most restaurants fail within five years. So basically, the fact that Del Pietro’s Ristorante has outlasted the average restaurant by a factor of six and made it to the big three-oh this year would be mathematically akin to me making it to the ripe old age
of 420-something.

While this is obviously not a corollary function, it does give an idea of the weight of the accomplishment: being able to outlast any number of food fads, health scares or diet crazes (Atkins anyone?) and become an institution. But what does this feat mean to diners? For some, it’s being able to keep a weekly date with their spouses even though it is now only a table for one. For others, it could mean sitting at a table with three or four generations of family, all of whom find something familiar and comforting on the menu and none of whom have to do the dishes. For me, it meant a chance to take my wife, an unabashed Italian-food junkie, to the place that made my favorite toasted ravioli as a kid.

The menu itself reads as I would imagine Artie Bucco’s does on “The Sopranos,” lots of cheese, cream and “gravy” (or tomato sauce, for the cable-challenged). The question of where to begin is an easy one for any self-respecting St. Louisan: toasted ravs. Appropriately crunchy, plump with nicely spiced meat, well-dusted with Parmesan and paired with a tangy tomato sauce, they lived up to my memories.

Stuffed mushrooms, in a surprising turn, actually allowed the sweet flavor of the crab and scallops to come through and play off of the earthy fungi instead of languishing beneath garlic butter and breadcrumbs.

The antipasto plate varied in the pleasures offered. Salami and thicker-than-normal prosciutto excelled when paired with sharp, pungent Gorgonzola or the sweet, briny caponata of golden raisins, capers, bell peppers, celery, eggplant and sherry vinegar. Sharp enough, grilled wedges of Pecorino Romano seemed to suck the moisture out of my mouth whilst kalamata olives dazzled the taste buds as fruity notes duked it out with the salty brine. Mozzarella discs lacked delicacy and were too rubbery and bland for so little oil and pepper seasoning.

A special salad of fresh spinach, tasty yellow and red grape tomatoes and Champagne vinaigrette disappointed because of ho-hum mozzarella and bland underdressing. Thank goodness someone had the sense to get the Del Pietro salad, a traditional St. Louis-style Italian salad made better with a hefty amount of salami that had been steeping in the dressing.

Well-cooked risotto (one can still discern individual grains of rice that maintain some resistance to the teeth) with pears, caramelized onions, prosciutto, Gorgonzola and walnuts was sweet with caramel flavors and pleased the table. Chicken Burko, with its sequoia-sized, super-flavorful broccoli and oddly savory white wine-lemon sauce, could have been unreal if not for the dry, overcooked chicken and minuscule amount of mushrooms. As it was, the dish only made it to pleasant status.

It turned out that leftovers from the succulent veal Parmigiano, swimming in a tomato sauce that lit up my taste buds, became my young son’s first Italian dish the next day. At the end of his meal, he looked like everyone after an Italian feast, drowsy and content. Sausage, spicy enough to cut through the acid of the tomato sauce, hit the palate first, but what really pulled the dish together was excellent ricotta cheese. It held just enough of its texture and gave the dish a rich bridge between flavors.

The winner for best presentation was the salsiccia, halved and arranged into an X above a snake pit of Chianti-smothered peppers, topped with a chimney stack of crispy onion rings acting as a vase for a bundle of chives. The sausage had a little heat to it, which was balanced by the sweetness inherent in everything else, especially the aged balsamic.

Suffering from a serious lapse in portion control, the three-cheese fettuccini was a presentation nightmare, but then, who cares? It arrived in what seemed like a wok-sized bowl with nothing to garnish it, relying only on the richness I have come to love in St. Louis Italian food, so much wonderful cream and cheese. Only its sheer size prevented the table from devouring the final bites – and the leftovers in my refrigerator did not live to see sunrise.

The service was warm and friendly, the only hiccup being some timing issues on the first visit, where apps and salads arrived nearly simultaneously, with a long lag before entrées. This bonus time allowed me to contemplate a pretty abbreviated wine list of about 25 bottles split evenly between red and white. Maybe it’s just customers’ penchant for beer and cocktails, but with so many excellent Italian wines out there, it seems like an opportunity to really complement the food is being missed. But then, if it ain’t broke – and after 30 years, it clearly ain’t – don’t fix it.

In the end, I certainly understood why Del Pietro’s made it to 30. I enjoyed the food, the service, the atmosphere and, most especially, how all of it didn’t empty my wallet. Here’s to my son bringing his kids here and to another 30. Salute.