Andy Taylor Is Eating His Way to the Best Pizza in St. Louis

Andy Taylor is on a quest: He wants to discover the best pizza in St. Louis. And he’ll leave no slice uneaten in his pursuit.

Taylor, who works at Barnes-Jewish Hospital as a sterile processing tech, started in December with Joanie’s To-Go in Soulard. Taylor’s goal is to try one new slice each week with the hopes of trying 50 local pizzeries by the end of the year. (He’s not interested in restaurants that happen to do pizza, however great; he’s sticking to restaurants that are pizza-centric.) 

When it came time to chart his course, Taylor turned to the St. Louis Pizza Passport. “I literally just took their list from last year and added to it,” says Taylor. You can follow his journey online on Instagram and TikTok (@pizzababble).

He recently joined us to share about what he’s learned so far — and what’s up next. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Why pizza?

It actually started with sandwiches. The two things that we have most of in St. Louis are pizza places and sandwiches. I love hot sandwiches and my wife likes cold sandwiches. Seeing all the Italian places around I was like, “There's a lot of pizza places.” Then last year I started looking around and I'm like, ‘You can actually get any kind of pizza — you can get Chicago, New York, St. Louis style.’”

What’s been your favorite so far?

I would have to say Pizza-A-Go-Go. I think there's two or three of them. The one I went through, it's very small. They only sell pizza. They don't have appetizers or anything. Just pizza and soda. They probably fit like 20 people inside the building itself. They give you the menu and on the menu, it tells you their story, and they've been around since ‘67. Overall, the pizza was good and the atmosphere was good. So, so far that's No. 1.

Which has been your least favorite?

Honestly, it was probably Racanelli's Pizza. I've had it before back when they used to have one near Barnes, but that would close down. So we went to the one in Maplewood. It was like a New York style but it just threw me off. The sausage was like that crumbled sausage like on Tony’s pizza.

What’s your favorite style of pizza?

Honestly, probably a New York style. Be honest, St. Louis style pizza either you like it or you don’t. And let's be honest, Imo's is expensive. But I will give Imo’s this, they are the best when it comes to appetizers and sandwiches and salads.

What’s your go-to topping?

To me, it all depends on the pizza itself, like, crust wise. So if it's New York style, I try to limit the toppings because you don't want too many. Usually just pepperoni or cheese. But if it's like a deep dish or something, I'll go for meat.

What’s the best thing to drink with pizza?

I enjoy pizza with nice ice cold Mexican Coke.

What made you decide to take on this pizza journey?

I want to show St. Louis a lot of these places because there's a lot of small pizza places that's on my list that people may not have heard about or maybe they're interested in trying different pizza places and I want to show people like these are really good pizza places.

Slideshow

Top 5 Pepperoni Pizzas in St. Louis, Chosen by Our Critic

Click to View 5 slides