Expansion on The Hill brings new restaurants, retail, and real estate to the neighborhood

Editor’s Note: This is the second of two stories dedicated to The Hill neighborhood. Read our first story, focused on the history of the neighborhood and its dining and retail scene, here. 

Residents asked Joe Vollmer, then the St. Louis alderman for The Hill, why on Earth he’d allow a topless restaurant to open in the neighborhood.

“Tapas,” he’d reply. “Tapas.”

Tapas, a type of Spanish appetizer or small plate, were on the menu at the late, great Modesto Tapas Bar & Restaurant when it opened in 2001. Guido’s Pizzeria & Tapas, which opened on Shaw Avenue in 1988, has since become a neighborhood staple for tapas as well.

In 2020, residents also wondered how Vollmer could support the opening of Pizzeria da Gloria across the street from his own Milo’s Bocce Garden, which includes St. Louis-style pizza on its menu. 

“It’s just like having Marconi Mercato across the street — the more the merrier,” Vollmer says. “This is a neighborhood built upon hospitality. Family, food, and friendship is what we do here.” 

The traditionally Italian-American neighborhood continues to build upon hospitality, adapting with the times. The community welcomes neighbors and newcomers, Vollmer emphasizes, who enjoy increasingly diverse offerings, supporting one another as they do.

Smells — not just of bread baking or sauce simmering — draw tourists and locals to wander inside some of these businesses. Herbaria sells handmade soaps and personal care products, something visitors can smell long before they approach the shop door.

“I’ve only been here for what — 14 years?” says Melissa Gibbs, who runs the shop with her husband, Blake Larson. “And seeing the development is kind of wild.”

Some residents add on to smaller original homes, keeping the property within families, or they rebuild on lots. Gibbs points to Moda at The Hill, a four-story apartment development with 225 units built on the site of a former warehouse. There’s La Collina, a new development of about 65 homes and townhomes from McBride Homes. Another new townhome development is in the works in the northwest corner of the neighborhood.

Carolyn Cassani Ring, who grew up on The Hill, now greets visitors at The Hill Neighborhood Center as its operations coordinator. She tells them about the neighborhood’s many special events, such as the Soap Box Derby, the Independence Day Fireworks Show, the Italian Heritage Parade and Festa, and Christmas on the Hill. Another beloved annual event, the Gateway Cup bicycle race, speeds through the neighborhood over Labor Day weekend with its dedicated Giro della Montagna race.

“We gear a lot of our events toward families and toward children, because it’s important for them to know that they’re not just living in a neighborhood or they’re just going to school at St. Ambrose,” she says. “They have to know that they’re appreciated, and they’re thought of.”

Enrollment at the parish school of St. Ambrose Catholic Church is expected to rise from about 300 students to nearly 400 for the 2026-2027 school year, partly because of the announced closure of the St. Louis Archdiocese’s South City Catholic Academy. 

“More teachers, more desks, more computers, all that stuff,” says the pastor, the Rev. Jack Siefert. “I’m blessed to be here.”

Looking Out for Your Neighbors

Herbaria, just a block away from St. Ambrose and catty-corner to Milo’s, is in a position to see business and restaurant growth. Up the next block, So iLL opened a retail store in 2021, where it sells rock climbing holds, shoes, and lifestyle wear. Down the same block, market and restaurant Marconi Mercato opened in 2024. Three blocks away, another soap and personal products store, Maven Apothecary, moved from Maplewood to The Hill, also in 2024.

The addition doesn’t phase Gibbs and Larson. “It’s not a competition,” she says. “There’s enough foot traffic and enough interest, and we have our own story and focus.” 

Herbaria started in 2001 out of the Kirkwood home of LaRee DeFreece and Ken Gilberg. When the couple learned that the building on The Hill was available to rent, they jumped at the chance to move. Half the business is mail order, and half is retail. Employees make the soap on location, offering tours to anyone who walks in. The shop dog, a white pit bull mix named Bubbles, serves as a vital part of the welcoming committee.

“Everybody’s looking out for everybody,” Gibbs says. “To me, it’s like, if I left the door unlocked, someone would pause walking and would be like, ‘oh, let me make sure the owners know.’”

The Hill is a central location in St. Louis, close to Interstate 44 and attractions like the Missouri Botanical Garden and Tower Grove Park, residents and business owners point out. That, as well as its reputation for safety and hospitality, have made it a draw for new business and restaurant owners.

A Fine-Dining Destination

As a kid growing up in south St. Louis County, Nick Bognar and his family visited The Hill for special occasions. He recalls visiting Giovanni’s On the Hill, and his favorite, Charlie Gitto’s, where his parents never got to order off the kids’ menu for him, he points out. (“I was kind of a weird kid,” he says. “I loved restaurants.”) 

He worked as a kid at his parents’ sushi and Japanese restaurant in Ballwin, Nippon Tei. He has since branched out, earning local and national acclaim and James Beard Award nominations.

“I always had this feeling of, The Hill had nice restaurants, and we wanted to be part of that community, right? We just wanted to add to the fine dining side of things there,” he says.

In 2017, a fire heavily damaged the building occupied by Giovanni’s On The Hill, a fine dining landmark for more than four decades. In 2023, Bognar opened his sushi-focused restaurant Sado in the space. In late 2024, he opened the adjacent dining room omakase experience, Pavilion.

“After getting into the neighborhood and talking with everybody here, I don’t think it could have been a warmer reception from all the businesses, especially from the people living in the neighborhood,” he says. “Missouri Baking Co. came around with a ton of cookies.” 

If anything, he thinks people are excited that he’s offering a different type of fine-dining experience in the neighborhood. 

“I would say the same people that like to eat at Sado will definitely be visitors of places like Charlie Gitto’s or Dominic’s on the Hill or some of these nicer restaurants as well. And I think we share this clientele nicely.” 

He jokes that he has eaten every sandwich offered on The Hill, an easy task because he and his fiance now live in a townhouse nearby. He walks to work every day. His in-laws plan to move in nearby as well.

“I think the whole neighborhood is alive,” he says. “I can’t be happier with the amount of business — people walk around and hang out. And it’s a really great feeling.” 

Living a Dream

Joe Kurowski, owner of Pizzeria da Gloria, grew up in Belleville, Illinois, and his family often visited The Hill to grab a sandwich or eat a special meal. His family wasn’t Italian.

“My dad’s like, half Polish, half Croatian,” says Kurowski. “And I say that my mom’s South Dakotan.” 

His father had spent a year of college in Rome and was “obsessed” with Italian culture, so the family would visit Italy as well. When Kurowski went to college, he also spent a year studying in Rome, but bounced around jobs before settling on work as an asbestos litigation attorney with the family practice.

“I never really knew what I wanted to do,” he says.

He did know he liked to make pizza. It had become a hobby, and then an obsession, after returning from studying in Rome. He attended a pizza masterclass in Rome, apprenticed at a pizzeria in Brooklyn, studied pizza baking in Naples, traveled some more and perfected his technique. 

In November 2020, he opened the pizzeria named after his grandmother in a portion of the old Amighetti’s/Colino’s space.

Opening during the pandemic meant they could first offer carry-out only, and then move into the outdoor patio. “It gave us time to figure everything out,” he says. “And, like, mess stuff up.” The pizza is cooked slower on a wood-fired oven at a lower temperature than traditional Neapolitan pizza, resulting in a light and crispy crust.

He talks about his “buddies” from other businesses on the block — Milo’s, Herbaria, So iLL, and beyond. People have been warm and accepting, he says. He fits right in.

“People think I’m Italian because I speak Italian,” he says. “My name is Joe, and I make pizza.”

He knows other restaurants here offer pizza, such as Nicky Slices Pizza Club, which offers a riff on Detroit-style pizza.

Nick Williams of Nicky Slices grew up in North St. Louis County and helped out at his father’s pizzeria on South Grand. His dad would take him and his sister to the Delmar Loop to try different cuisines and understand different cultures, he says. 

“I was exposed to a lot of different things in St. Louis very early, and a lot of different cultures, and I think that shows in the food that we make and the way that I look at the world now,” he says.

After opening as a take-and-bake venture in November 2020, the brick-and-mortar location of Nicky Slices opened on The Hill in October 2025. The shop offers conventional pies and slices like cheese and pepperoni, and adventurous offerings like the Dumps Like a Truck pizza with pork, chives, and sriracha mayo. Special pizzas might feature meatballs, chicken nuggets, kimchi, or even fish.

Fish on pizza works in a very Catholic neighborhood during Lent, Williams points out. “I want to be a part of that now since we’re in a neighborhood like The Hill,” he says. “We put smoked salmon on a pizza and we treated it like whatever you’d put on a lox bagel, but the salmon’s hot smoked, so it’s just really good.”

Williams loves that he can give St. Louis a true “slice shop,” that isn’t necessarily a time-consuming, sit-down experience.

“It’s the coolest scene to me when people sit down and they’re with their buddy, or they’re with their girlfriend or boyfriend and they’ll just like, grab a soda from the fridge, sit down, put garlic salt on their slice. That’s like the ethos of a slice shop to me,” Williams says. “So I think we made the right call in building this place.”

There’s always room for more pizza, Kurowski says. Each spot offers something different. 

“Every year, we’ve just gradually been getting busier,” Kurowski says. “And people are still discovering this, which I think is great.”

Building on Tradition

One truth is known about how the St. Louis staple of toasted ravioli got its start: It started somewhere on The Hill. The chef that accidentally dropped ravioli into hot oil instead of boiling water may have been working at Mama’s On the Hill, or Charlie Gitto’s, or elsewhere. 

No matter. Now, husband and wife and business partners Matthew Fuller and Brittany Abernathy are reinventing the St. Louis staple at their storefront, STL Toasted.

They offer hand-stuffed T-ravs filled with three cheeses and beef, but also serve a buffalo chicken version and a carrot cake gooey butter version, served with maple mascarpone and candied pecans. There’s sandwiches served on housemade schiacciata bread, and slices of housemade porchetta, a type of savory Italian pork roast rolled and stuffed with herbs and wrapped in a crispy pork belly.

“There are people who want something newer, that we’re trying to be able to offer, but then also keep the traditions alive,” Fuller says. 

Abernathy was an occupational therapist and Fuller was a musician before the two decided to open shop in City Foundry STL in 2022. When the old Mama Toscano’s space became available in 2022, they set it up as a production space and then a restaurant. In late 2025, they moved out of the Foundry to focus on the space in The Hill. The couple live upstairs with their toddler daughter and infant son. They love the central location and living amongst customers.

“The business owners have all been great. We got a lot of regulars who come here every week,” Fuller says. “The Hill’s been great — people have just been really receptive and giving us a lot of kudos.” 

They’ve become friendly with other younger restaurant owners like Bognar, Kurowski, and Williams of Nicky Slices, who buys STL Toasted’s sausage and raviolis to sell at his storefront. 

“Isn’t that weird,” Williams says, “to think about people immigrating from Italy to St. Louis to The Hill to make salami, and now that salami is perfect?”

He thinks about how St. Louis neighborhoods offer a good mix of destination restaurants, both known within a neighborhood and beyond. “St. Louis is a perfect melting pot of everything. The food scene is its own living, breathing scene,” he says. “The cool thing about St. Louis is a lot of people will drive to get really good things.”

When they can, the business owners try to uplift one another, leveling up their offerings: STL Toasted serves up sandwiches on Pete’s Italian Baking Co.’s seeded French bread. They’re collaborating with 4 Hands Brewing Co. in LaSalle Park, serving up toasted ravioli stuffed with pork steak braised in City Wide beer.

“We’re all just trying,” says Fuller, “to make St. Louis a little more special.”