The fate of I Fratellini, the longest-tenured of Zoë Robinson’s celebrated trio of Clayton restaurants, has finally been resolved. Matt McGuire, the owner of the acclaimed Louie, will open a new restaurant called Wright’s Tavern in the space at 7624 Wydown Boulevard, as Sauce first reported.
“It’s a beautiful restaurant for sure,” McGuire says. “I’ve always liked the scale of that room and Wydown and that neighborhood. So I’ve always wanted to be there if I could, and it just worked out.”
McGuire describes Wright’s Tavern as an “old-fashioned” concept. Expect a menu featuring steaks, oysters and other seafood and a “proper” hamburger of the kind he remembers from visits with his father to Dooley’s and the Fatted Calf.
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The space is too small to call Wright’s Tavern a steakhouse, McGuire says, “but that’s sort of in the vein of what it is.”
The Wright of Wright’s Tavern is the architect and planner Henry Wright, whose designs included the historic Brentmoor Park, Brentmoor and Forest Ridge subdivisons.
McGuire aims to host Wright Tavern’s first trial dinners in early September. Most of the work he plans for the space is cosmetic or involves changing cooking equipment.
The news marks the end for I Fratellini, which Robinson debuted in 2001. The longtime St. Louis restaurateur added Bar Les Frères in 2012 at 7637 Wydown and Billie-Jean in 2017 at 7610 Wydown.
The three restaurants have been closed for nearly the entirety of the pandemic. In November 2021, Robinson announced the sale of all three to a new owner who planned to reopen I Fratellini, but that deal did not work out.
This March, the restaurant group behind Vicia and Winslow’s Table announced its purchase of Bar Les Frères, which it will reopen under that name.
Ian Froeb’s STL 100: Our critic’s 2022 guide to the best restaurants in St. Louis
