It’s been almost a month since Fino’s reopened, but I only made it by for my first meal yesterday. I know it took a minute for everything to come together, and I know that haters gonna hate, but 25 days in, Kelly English and company didn’t miss the mark on anything.

My beloved Acquisto? The same (and plenty of olive salad on mine, so if yours was skimpy in the first few days, try again). The Italian roast beef? An open face, huge and hearty, knife-and-fork sandwich. The crowd? Might as well plan to stay and visit awhile, because you’ll know plenty of folks there. The pizza? I can’t tell you if it’s as good as it used to be, because I didn’t eat pizza at Fino’s back when. But I will now.

So the back story, condensed, as you most likely know it. Kelly English and his partners Steve and Sylvia Richey bought Fino’s in Midtown on March 1 from Jerry Wilson and re-opened it June 6. (The former Fino’s East location on West Brookhaven Circle is now being leased to Bogie’s Deli, the location which was previously on Mendenhall.)

Possible redevelopment sandwiches Bogie’s future

Fino's is on the ground floor of The Gilmore at the corner of Madison and McLean, where original owner Joann Finocchiaro Johnson opened it in 1990; Wilson purchased it in 2009 and it’s been a sandwich shop staple for almost 30 years.

You want to hate on Provel cheese? I don’t care — I even understand, except that you can’t have St. Louis pizza without it, no more than you can have Rotel dip without Velveeta. Yes, it’s processed cheese, a blend of cheddar, Swiss and provolone, and no, I don’t want a plate of Provel and crackers. But it sure melts on a pizza and the one we ate, dotted with sliced meatballs, red sauce, dried herbs and the gooey cheese, was just so good. 

English promised to keep Fino’s the same and the menu hasn’t changed. He said some people have complained about the bread, but honestly, the bread is still coming from La Baguette and has it changed from 20 years ago? Maybe — but it’s almost certainly the same bread Fino’s was buying when it closed in 2018.

The pizza crust is different, though. As I said, I never ate the pizza before, so this comes to me from English, not my experience. The recipe he was given made a dough that was too soft and spongy for a thin-crust St. Louis-style pizza, so he went in search of a good one. As far as I’m concerned, he found it.