Some people were just meant to be in “the business.” Katie Lee seems to be one of them. Since the age of 13, she worked in her aunt’s restaurants, washing dishes, bussing tables and hostessing. And her aunt? None other than Zoë Robinson, one of St. Louis’ best-known and most successful restaurateurs. It must be in the genes.
So what made you want to open your own restaurant? I worked for [my aunt] for six or seven years, and really, it’s about all I’ve done, being in the restaurant business. It’s the first time in my life that I’ve felt really comfortable. People-pleasing, making people feel good … I do a lot of dinner parties and I like wowing people.
Running a restaurant is different than having a dinner party. You have to surround yourself with a really great staff … It’s a family restaurant. My dad owns the building and financed it. My mother, who is the artist Belinda Lee, she’s Zoë’s sister. You know, they’re really good cooks, all three sisters, so she helps out a lot. I’ve got my best friend working in the kitchen, and I grew up a block away … so it’s all neighborhood people working for me.
You traveled through Italy with your mom, so how did the food in Italy inspire you to open this type of pizzeria as opposed to a more American-style pizza joint? My mom ran the study abroad program for the fine art department at Wash. U. My brothers [and I] would go for the spring as kids and young adults. I think the inspiration is loving the simplicity of Italy. They have all these regions with specialty items and they take pride in all of that. And they don’t do a lot of fluff. If you’re on the coast where pesto is big, then you get pesto on pasta and that’s it, and it’s just really good.
So what would you say the style of the pizza is at Katie’s? The dough is a really classic Neapolitan dough. It’s simple. It’s flour, yeast, olive oil, salt. That’s it. [I learned how to make it] through a lot of practice. Trial and error.
How much trial and error did it take? I’ve been doing these pizzas for years. Some of them are brand spankin’ new, but most of them … the Margherita is a classic. I’ve been doing the prosciutto-asparagus, the fennel sausage, the salami and the wild mushroom pizzas forever. The new ones are the apple and prosciutto, the smoked salmon, the shrimp … and then the potato. I’ve just always heard about potato pizzas and thought I’d try it; [I] added some parsnip and some pancetta.
Tell me about your antipasto. It’s a short menu with intense flavors. We have a few more we’re going to add, I just don’t have the equipment yet. Like artichoke and gorgonzola toasted ravioli with a pesto dipping sauce. So we gotta get a fryer. With the salads, I really wanted to do a tuna niçoise because that was one of my favorite things in Italy. The shrimp Caesar was to do a crowd-pleaser. The chopped salad is just really healthy, crisp with nice flavor.
The prosciutto spring rolls. Tell me about them. Those are really good – prosciutto wrapped around asparagus, [fresh] mozzarella and julienned vegetables with basil. Clean, fresh ingredients and drizzled with a little balsamic vinegar.
In St. Louis there’s obviously a specific style of pizza that is based on a Neapolitan style. Do you feel that you might have to change things to fit people’s expectations of what “pizza” is? We had so many conversations about that. Our general manager was really worried, but we’ve been really busy, and, honestly, we’ve had a few people who have said, “I just want pepperoni” or “I just want sausage.” So we’ll give ’em Genoa salami and I think they’re OK with it. I think they really like it. I think [our toppings] sound more intense than they are. The flavors work so well together. It’s an experience for people, and they’re coming back.
The space is small – it seats fewer than 40 people. What type of atmosphere were you going for? Being young, I wanted it to be hip, but I’m not into those pretentious, cold, stark restaurants. They’re beautiful, but you don’t feel warm and cozy in there. Here, the walls are all yellow, which is really warm. And the mismatched tables make you feel like it’s not intimidating. Good lighting at night – really low and lots of candlelight.
This is your first restaurant. You’re 26. You just opened. Where do you dream that this will take you? I want to perfect this, which will take a while. Once it’s perfected and we have a good feel for it, I’d like to open another one. I really like the pizzeria; I think that I want to stick with that. It’s a new trend, the upscale pizzeria. And I like to keep the menu based on one thing rather than all over the place.
So what made you say this is the right time and this is the right place? My dad bought the building and the space became available, and I’ve been wanting to open a restaurant for a really long time. It’s just what I’ve always wanted to do. We kinda just went for it. We’re both kinda lookin’ at each other going, “Oh, my God, what have we done?” But it’s always been a dream of mine. This is all I want to do.
This article appears in Mar 1-31, 2008.