Tony's opened in 1946 as a spaghetti house just off Produce Row in downtown St. Louis. Delmonico's opened in New York more than a century earlier, in 1837, and KSDK calls it America's first fine-dining restaurant. Tony's spent its last four years at 105 Carondelet Plaza in downtown Clayton. The same room is now set to become Delmonico's Hospitality Group's first restaurant outside New York City.
The new restaurant will be called Citadel Prime. Clayton City Council approved it unanimously on October 13. So the space that ended the best-known name in St. Louis fine dining will be filled by one of the oldest names in American fine dining. Twenty-one months after Tony's last service, the Carondelet Plaza room is still headed toward special-occasion dining.
Four Years on Carondelet Plaza
Tony's moved to Clayton later than planned. St. Louis Magazine reported that relocation rumors circulated for years, and then pandemic delays pushed the move back further. When the restaurant finally reopened in March 2021, lunch started March 22 and dinner on March 24.
James Bommarito led the move. He was the third generation to run the restaurant his grandfather Anthony Bommarito founded. He explained his reasons to Ladue News. Clayton was his hometown. It put Tony's closer to many of its regular guests. The Centene campus was busy and already a destination for restaurants, and the new space allowed outdoor seating, which the downtown location had never offered.
St. Louis Magazine described the new dining room just before it opened as "stunning in a subtly dramatic way." Warm cherry wood ran through the beams, columns, sliding slatted panels and acoustic tiles, with a black leather banquette along one wall and a triptych by America Martin. The restaurant inside that room carried decades of honors. Tony's held both the Mobil Five Star and the AAA Five Diamond awards for more than twenty years, ending in 2000, then kept a AAA Four Diamond rating. In 2018 it was named a James Beard semifinalist for Outstanding Service.
Why the Room Went Dark
Tony's closed for good on Saturday, February 15, 2025, the day after Valentine's Day and just under four years after it opened in Clayton. The farewell statement was signed by James Bommarito, the Bommarito family and the restaurant team. It thanked guests for more than seven decades and gave no reason for the closing.
The restaurant's lawyer, Tom O'Toole Jr., explained the closing to St. Louis Magazine as a matter of operating costs:
"We're not trying to offset capital investment or debt associated with a buildout. This is strictly a P&L issue, a by-product of what revenue the restaurant can generate without compromising the level of service and culinary excellence that have been the hallmarks of Tony's for 78 years."
He added that those standards came at "a significant expense, from the increasingly high costs of both quality food and skilled labor." Bommarito told the magazine the decision was "all mine." He said Centene, the landlord, had been "very fair and kind," and he summed up his career this way: "I've worked 3300 Friday and Saturday nights in a row, 37 years worth, and I have no regrets."
That explanation matters for what comes next. Tony's did not leave because of the room, the location or the landlord. It left because of what tableside service at that level costs to provide. Any new tenant takes on the same room under the same cost pressures.
A New York Group's First Address Outside New York
The St. Louis Business Journal broke the news on September 15, 2026. It described Citadel Prime as a contemporary steakhouse that will take reservations and be run by Delmonico's Hospitality Group. According to Clayton's public-hearing notice, the restaurant will fill about 9,676 square feet in Centene Tower C, as St. Louis Restaurant Review reported.
Delmonico's own team page lists the people behind the group. Dennis Turcinovic is owner and executive culinary partner, Darko Matosic is managing partner, and Max Tucci is brand ambassador. At the Clayton hearing, Peter Gangi spoke on behalf of the operating entity, DHG STL Corp, according to the city's minutes.
Citadel Prime is a new concept with its own name. Tony's itself started as a spaghetti house and later added steak to its name before becoming simply Tony's, so steak has been part of this room's history before. What has changed is who is running it. Tony's was a single St. Louis family's restaurant with 79 years behind it. Citadel Prime will be run by a hospitality group expanding beyond its home city for the first time, and that expansion starts on Carondelet Plaza.
What City Hall Signed Off On
Approval moved through Clayton over about a month:
- September 15, 2026. The St. Louis Business Journal reports the project and names it Citadel Prime.
- October 13, 2026. City Council holds a public hearing on a conditional use permit for the restaurant at 105 Carondelet Plaza. The official minutes list the site as a mixed-use retail and office building and name Tony's as the previous tenant.
- Same night. The council passes Resolution No. 2026-31 on a 7–0 roll-call vote with all seven members present, as the Clayton Ledger reported.
The Clayton Ledger also reported that the permit keeps a 10 p.m. limit on outdoor music. That limit comes from the city's noise rules for businesses within 500 feet of a residential district, and it is not the restaurant's closing time. For anyone who lives within walking distance of the Centene campus, that is the condition that most affects evenings nearby.
When the Lights Come Back On
A conditional use permit lets the project proceed. It does not mean the restaurant is ready to open. As St. Louis Restaurant Review noted, more construction, licensing, inspections and operational steps come before the first guests are seated. KSDK reported a spring 2027 target. St. Louis Magazine's October openings roundup lists Citadel Prime under 2027.
A spring opening would come a little more than two years after Tony's closed. That is a long gap for a room this well known. The tenant that is filling it, a group whose name predates Tony's by 109 years and that has never operated outside New York, shows the space is still being treated as a top-tier dining room. If the spring 2027 target holds, the room where Tony's served its last dinner will be seating steakhouse reservations by next summer.
Anyone who knows the Centene campus understands how much one well-run storefront can shape downtown Clayton, and how much it can change the blocks around it when it goes dark. If you're watching Carondelet Plaza's next chapter and thinking about what it means for your own home a few streets away, Thompson & Richardson can walk you through it. Request a Private Home Consultation.
