Flying firmly under the local restaurant radar for the past few months is a cozy 32-seat box at Westport Plaza, Opa Greek Restaurant & Wine Bar. Located just east of Westport Social, it shares the same address, kitchen and owner as Dino’s Deli. Owner Dino Polimeropoulos has delis in Westport, Riverport, and a franchise operation at The Eatery inside the downtown Metropolitan Square Building. (On Monday November 11, the Westport site will celebrate its 4and birthday by offering gyroscopes for $4.)
When Dino’s Deli is open (Mon-Fri for lunch), the space is used for extra seating. But on weekends, the lights are dim, the menu changes, and the wine corks start popping. (In milder weather, the party spills over to the front and side patios.)
The menu includes a handful of sandwiches, salads and 10 shares – three kinds of flatbread, hummus, Greek nachos, Mediterranean bruschetta and two sampler platters, including Taste of Greece, with gyro meat, spanakopita, feta cheeses and kasseri, kalamata olives, tzatziki and warm pita bread.
The white wine list corrals six offerings from Greece, plus a handful from California, Europe, South Africa, and an Opa Riesling from Missouri. The six-bottle red list is West Coast heavy, but includes Opa Cabernet, also from Missouri. (Polimeropoulos learned about Missouri varietals at Headquarters, a pub and micro winery in Lee’s Summit, Missouri. “I liked their wines, asked about them, and they agreed to put two pennies private label,” he says.) All wines are available by the glass, a third bottle, and a bottle.
The beer list includes several of the so-called “St. The Louis family beers, Truly Hard Seltzer, and Mythos, a Greek blond beer from the Mythos Brewery, a subsidiary of Carlsberg since 2008.
The restaurant/wine bar is only open on weekend evenings (with additional seating available in the deli space, which is also open for business at this time) probably until the weather turns nice. broken.
Right now, there’s only one glaring omission: With a name like Opa, the place is crying out for fiery saganaki. “I haven’t been able to perfect it yet,” admits Polimeropoulos. “But when I do, I bet you’ll see this show at every table.”
