Fordo’s Killer Pizza is now open inside the Food Hall at City Foundry. The Neapolitan-style pizzeria is the latest venture from the acclaimed chef and restaurateur Gerard Craft. Craft is also the eponymous Fordo, a nickname based on his middle name, Ford.
The heart of Fordo’s is a wood-burning oven from Italian manufacturer Acunto. This oven curves out from the pizzeria’s stall, a design feature necessitated by its size. That spot was the only one that can support the oven’s weight, Craft tells Off the Menu.
Fordo’s features naturally fermented dough and a selection of pizzas that are both familiar and — in contrast to Craft’s other wood-fired pizzeria and Italian restaurant, Pastaria — inspired by cuisines other than Italy’s.
From the former category, Fordo’s options include pepperoni, four cheese (mozzarella, fontina, Tallegio and Parmesan) with honey, margherita and marinara. Fordo’s is also serving a taco pizza (pork carnitas, Oaxacan cheese, salsa verde, beans) and a shakshuka pizza (garlic, red-pepper sauce, two sunny-side-up eggs).
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Fordo’s Killer Pizza executive chef Joe Luckey (left) and chef-restaurateur Gerard Craft stand in front of the pizzeria’s wood-burning oven.
Joe Luckey is Fordo’s executive chef. A St. Louis native, he has worked at several of Craft’s restaurants, including Taste, Brasserie by Niche and the Nashville, Tennessee, location of Pastaria, where he rose to the position of executive chef. After returning to St. Louis, he worked as a sous chef at the original Pastaria.
When it comes to pizza, Luckey tells Off the Menu, “the bake and the dough and the flavor combinations that different people put together, those are kind of three big things I look for.”
Luckey is developing the pizzas that will push beyond Pastaria’s Italian confines. At Fordo’s, he says, “there really are no boundaries.”
The taco pizza, featuring carnitas and Oaxacan cheese, at Fordo’s Killer Pizza at the Food Hall at City Foundry.
Look for a broad range of inspirations, including Southeast Asian, Japanese, Mexican, South American, North African and Middle Eastern cuisines.
“So lots of different cuisines,” Luckey says, “and then just other pizzas that, you know, don’t necessarily subscribe to one cuisine, but are just good flavor combinations.”
A few appetizers (marinated olives, charred carrot hummus) and gelato round out the food menu.
Fordo’s Killer Pizza is open for lunch and dinner every day but Tuesday, when the Food Hall is closed.
The Food Hall at City Foundry opened in August of last year at 3730 Foundry Way at the southeast corner of Forest Park and South Vandeventer avenues.
The best spots for pizza, from Ian Froeb’s STL 100, our critic’s annual guide to the best restaurants in St. Louis.
