Refutation of Where To Eat Pizza

Daniel Young's Where to Eat Pizza is a very ambitious encyclopedia of pizza, but falls short of my expectations because of its failure to include St. Louis-style pizza and Provel cheese. Released in late March of 2016, the 526-page behemoth of a book devotes hardly a page to the best pizza places in St. Louis. Out of the abundance of great pizza places in St. Louis, the book lists only five, while also listing five pizza places in Omaha, Nebraska.

Are you kidding me? I actually got nervous when I read the Wall Street Journal over the weekend, which highlighted the release of this book. It appeared that someone else had already done stlpizzaguy's job by finding the best pizza places in the area.

"Have no fear, I am still the holder of many St. Louis pizza secrets not mentioned in Where to Eat Pizza."

Where To Eat Pizza is written by someone I could only dream to be someday: the aficionado of all aficionados when it comes to pizza: Daniel Young. He is the organizer of the London Pizza Festival, which is a yearly pizza tasting and competition featuring some of the best pizzas in Europe.

In order write this book, Mr. Young couldn't have possibly gone to every major U.S. city and ranked the pizza. I'm sure that if he did visit St. Louis, Young might have devoted a full chapter to St. Louis pizza and given Provel cheese and our local spots the credit they deserve. Instead, he employed regional food experts. Ian Froeb was chosen as the regional food expert for Missouri Pizza. Mr. Froeb is a very accomplished food critic in Missouri, and known for his 100 top St. Louis restaurants on stltoday.com. In the case of pizza, however, he misses the mark.

Out of the five St. Louis pizza places listed in the book on pages 408-409, only one of the five listed in the book are in my top 10.

According to Where To Eat Pizza, the BEST pizza places in St. Louis are:

• Pastaria
• Black Thorn Pub & Pizza
• La Pizza
• Pizzeoli
• Pizzeria Tivoli

All of these pizza places are certainly great, but then again it is rare that I meet a pizza that I don't like. My bone to pick is the lack of any St. Louis-style pizza places listed by the author. Pastaria is wood-fired Neopolitan, while Black Thorn is Chicago-style deep dish. La Pizza is a New York-style pizza, while Pizzeoli is Neapolitan, along with Pizzeria Tivoli. 

Maybe the Neapolitan Pizza mafia along with the Chicago-style Pizza mafia paid a visit to the author of the book. All jokes aside, if you want to find out my top-10 pizza places from someone born and raised in St. Louis, then stay tuned because my list coming soon.