Katie's Pizza & Pasta is a welcome addition to Ballpark Village in downtown St. Louis

The gorgeous Katie's Pizza & Pasta inside of Ballpark Village is an artfully designed, 10,000-square-foot space featuring beautiful paintings, sculptures and a grand marble-and-quartzite bar. The space, though massive, is warm and inviting; the open pasta station allows guests to watch pasta being cut and filled while the open kitchen at the back provides the perfect soundtrack for a busy restaurant.

The secondi menu is unique to the restaurant group and offers large, over-the-top plates perfect for sharing. The ranch ribeye alla Fiorentina is a 24-ounce bone-in ribeye presented sliced with crispy fingerling potatoes, arugula salad and a taleggio cheese fondue for dipping. This is meat and potatoes supersized and fancified. The stunning Maine lobster tail thermidor sees tender, sweet pieces of lobster folded in a creamy sauce and presented inside the lobster shell topped with salmon caviar, dill and tarragon. It's the kind of dish that makes others turn and watch as it's walked to your table. The tempura-fried whole branzino is also a showstopper, plated with a salad and salsa verde. Other dishes like oysters Fellini (raw oysters with caviar), chicken Parmigiano with Fontina and prosciutto, and seared, skin-on king salmon with chickpea and summer vegetable stew, are new to the menu as well.

Katie's Pizza & Pasta, 751 Clark Ave., St. Louis, 314.942.2416, katiespizzaandpasta.com