Racanelli's New York Style Pizzeria

It's my birthday and I will eat pizza if I want to. Ok so it's not my birthday today, but it was yesterday and believe it or not I was forced to eat Steak... but my co-workers came through big time with pizza today.

Racanelli's New York Style Pizzeria is a family owned local chain that first opened in University City in 1994, now they have 6 locations including St Peters, the source of pizza for this review. Their menu includes salads, appetizers, sandwiches, Stromboli, calzone and of course pizza. Aside from the hand tossed crust you can also get their version of the pan pizza called the Sicilian. The standard cheese is mozzarella, but you can also get feta, ricotta and cheddar cheese on your pie.

It was my birthday so they ordered my standard: pepperoni, ham (Canadian bacon is not offered), meatballs and onions. The pizza was a large (18in), and cut into 8 slices, so they required some support for the first few bites. The edge of the crust is a bit chewy but quite good. The sauce was evenly spred in the proper amount, not to much not to little. The ingredients were all good. The meatballs were very good, but I would have liked to have seen a few more on the pizza as there were a couple of slices with only one meatball. We also got a half meatball parmigianna (meatballs with mozzarella and ricotta cheese), half Veggie, both of which are on Racanelli's specialty pizza list. It too was a large (18in) and could have used a few more meatballs. Although I didn't sample the veggie portion of the pie I did try the meatball parmigianna. The ricotta cheese adds a whole new texture to the pizza. The ricotta doesn't really melt in the same way as the mozzarella, so they remain separate. I probably wouldn't order it myself but I wouldn't turn my nose up at it if somebody else was flipping the bill. (It should be noted that I found both pizza's to be as good if not better the next day after about 45 sec in the microwave. I much prefer to use a toaster oven for left over pizza, but at work it is a microwave on nothing)

The pizza was good and my standard pass's the "Would I pay for it again" test. As stated above I would like to see a little bit more toppings on the pizza's (my standard in a large runs almost $25). Racanelli's New York Style Pizzaeria is located at 3945 Mid Rivers Mall Dr. in St Peters, MO. You can reach them at (636) 447-1999, for more information check out their web-site(click on the title link).

Recommended.

GAW