The Flying Tomato

The Flying Tomato offers classic Italian dishes served up in either small individual portions or large sizes. No matter which you choose, the prices won’t break the bank.

By Katie Pollock Estes

Although the Trolley’s streetscape décor still remains on one wall of The Flying Tomato (which is located in dining space that used to be part of Trolley’s), the rest of the walls are now bespattered with splats of tossed tomatoes. They’re just painted, of course. There are no actual vegetables dripping down the walls. But they add a little extra whimsy to an already whimsical space.

But a lighthearted and eccentric paint job isn’t all that makes the former bar space a little more family-friendly. The Flying Tomato also has a family- and kid-friendly menu, with entrées that can be ordered in small or large serving sizes.

My husband, Eli Estes, and I perused the menu for a while before we ordered, and in the meantime our sweet server brought us a basket of sliced bread, some butter and a couple of cool drinks.

On the menu we found several traditional Italian dishes—everything from classic fettuccine alfredo and five-layer lasagna to more creative options like the Pasta Hannah: Beef loin over angel hair pasta that’s tossed with an olive oil and garlic sauce. But it isn’t just pasta. We also saw sandwiches (mmm… meatball sub), thin-crust St. Louis–style pizza and a few American options like chicken fingers.

From the appetizer section, we opted for the fried green tomatoes. The menu says the cornmeal-crusted, flash-fried goodies come with “tangy Flying Tomato sauce” for dipping. Not having a clue what that might mean, we went ahead and ordered it. Turns out, that sauce is quite tasty. Its mustard-y flavor goes great with the fried tomatoes, and it’s a welcome change of pace from the typical side of ranch dressing that we’ve gotten most other places. We had this idea that we’d only try the fried green tomatoes. Yeah, right. We ate the whole plate.

For his entrée, Eli ordered the Italian grilled sausage pasta. I tasted it, and we both agreed it was our favorite part of the meal. It’s penne pasta tossed with a homemade red sauce and grilled sausage from The Hill in St. Louis. The pasta was al dente,
and the sauce tasted fantastic. You can tell it was

made with plenty of herbs that added a real depth of flavor. And that sausage… well… this St. Louis girl has a soft spot for real Italian sausage that tastes like Italian sausage and is packed with fennel. This fit the bill.

I ordered the pasta carbonara. Tender shell pasta is covered in alfredo sauce, a three-cheese blend, loads of smoked bacon and Parmesan cheese on top (a little more cheese for good measure, right?). The bacon was hands-down the best part of this dish. There was so much of it that every bite was addictive. I just kept going back for more. Luckily for me, the smaller serving size that I ordered was quite reasonable. Not too big, not too small. And, like everything else we ate, it was less than $10. This place is full of steals.