ST. LOUIS — Ask 10 people in St. Louis where to get the city’s best toasted ravioli and they’ll give you 10 different places, said Matthew Fuller.
His plan is to get everyone in town answering that question the same way: “You’ve got to check out STL Toasted.”
This spring, Fuller and his wife Brittany Abernathy plan to open a 500-square-foot food stall at City Foundry that will be the city’s first eatery dedicated to the signature St. Louis dish. They’ll serve the t-rav, as locals call it, with traditional flavors such as Italian beef and three cheese, but they’ll also push the boundaries of deep fried dough pockets.
“We’ve got buffalo chicken, loaded potato, and southwestern quinoa,” Fuller said.
They’ll serve up sweet toasted ravioli, including apple pie and lemon blackberry gooey butter cake, a riff on another time-honored local delicacy. “It’s like two St. Louis things wrapped in one,” Fuller said.
Fuller first had to the idea build a business around toasted ravioli in 2014. The food truck business was booming in St. Louis at the time and the idea of “pushing the envelope on ravioli” seemed like a good one to Fuller.
“I wasn’t in a position to pursue it,” he said. “I’m a musician and I was pursuing that, but cooking has always been a passion of mine.”
Six years later, Fuller returned to the idea after a “life changing” car accident.
“I lost consciousness at the wheel, just kind of randomly, no explanation,” he said.
Fuller was told that he shouldn't drive, which put his music and his work as a real estate agent had on hold. Then the pandemic hit and he found himself, like many others, at home with much more time on his hands than before.
“I just spent a year going to doctors and not working and just depressed and anxious with the whole situation,” he said.
“I was finally like, ‘I gotta do something,’” he said. “Then this idea came back to me.”
Fuller threw himself into developing new stuffed ravioli flavors and credits his wife, Brittany, for many of the ideas. “She’s got a good mind for what she likes,” he said.
After landing on some successful combinations, Fuller held a pop-up at his house. When word got out about what he was doing, he started partnering with local businesses for pop-up events.
In December, he teamed up with Bella’s Frozen Yogurt on Washington Avenue for a one-day event. They served a lemon basil ricotta toasted ravioli with a tomato bisque frozen yogurt and a crab rangoon ravioli with wasabi frozen yogurt. Fuller said about 100 people came to the event and the local foodie community took notice. “We’ve gotten a lot of support and a lot of really encouraging messages,” he said.
Fuller held another pop-up with a burger joint and has another planned with Graffiti Grub at Tower Grove Farmers' Market on February 19th.
“We’re getting to collaborate with really cool people and getting to know a lot of awesome small business owners,” he said. “It’s just really cool to see the synergy between a lot of businesses because from what I’ve heard, it’s not like that everywhere.”
Fuller will have more opportunites for collaboration when STL Toasted opens in City Foundry, which has a food hall boasting stalls that serve Argentinian street food, creole dishes, and Afro Caribeean cuisine, among others. Fuller said his hope is to open in April. You can follow them at STL Toasted on Facebook.