Years ago, long before cooking professionally was even a passing consideration, Amy Pappas Loli’s young son declared her the “best cooker” and urged her to open a restaurant—though she never imagined it would become reality.. Nearly two decades later, the dental hygienist-turned-chef is preparing to do just that.
After a series of soft openings, Café Amalia (10907 Manchester) officially opens in Kirkwood on September 12. The restaurant will blend Greek and Mediterranean flavors, with a heartfelt touch rooted in her family heritage. Here’s what to expect.
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The Concept
Pappas Loli grew up surrounded by Mediterranean hospitality and wanted her restaurant to reflect that same warmth. What began as a successful private chef business, Amalia Culinary Art, evolved into a larger vision when a friend encouraged her to create a space where more people could enjoy her food.
“I love feeding people and seeing them share around the table—it’s how I grew up,” she says. “I want it to feel like you’ve come into my home, where I’ve whipped something up, made coffee, and we’re sitting together in good conversation.”
Café Amalia will serve breakfast and lunch from 7 a.m.–3 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday, with dinner service and a special “Malo Nights” menu planned for Thursday through Saturday.
Orders are placed at a rear counter, with staff delivering and clearing plates and attending to guests, keeping service casual yet a step above the norm. Service will be first come, first served, and online ordering will not be available, initially anyway, Pappas Loli says.
The Atmosphere
The café occupies a free-standing, black-and-white building with seating for 60, split between the ground floor and an upstairs event/overflow dining space, which is already being reserved for holiday gatherings.
Downstairs, a warm cinnamon-toned banquette, light wood furnishings, and different patterns of black-and-white tiles create a modern and cozy backdrop. A chandelier made of 100-plus glass globes hangs overhead, adding a whimsical charm. A spray of green patterned wallpaper beckons guests to the order counter. In addition to the kitchen layout, Ford Hotel Supply spearheaded the interior design as well.
The result is a space that feels fresh, comfortable, and welcoming—exactly as Pappas Loli imagined.
The Cuisine
Pappas Loli describes the fare as “Greek, Mediterranean, and a little Middle Eastern.” While she’s of Greek descent, she didn’t want to limit the café to Greek food, “for those who don’t like or eat it, perish the thought,” she says with a laugh. The overarching focus is “light and fresh—those are the operative words,” she says.
Breakfast highlights include some options not seen on other menus, including Green Goddess toast with avocado, vegetables, and dukkah; a tomato and feta egg scramble with blistered tomatoes, red pepper paste, and onions; and Dimitri’s Fryta, Greek french fries with scrambled eggs and feta cheese mixed in frittata-style—an item inspired by one of her son’s favorite foods.
Pappas Loli is especially proud of the coffee program, which includes single-origin espresso, freddo cappuccino (a double espresso whipped with milk and ice), Greek frappés, and Marbled Chickory Cold Brew (chickory-infused cold brew with vanilla syrup and half and half or heavy cream). “Coffee is a big thing in Greece,” Pappas Loli says. “Coffee culture, too. People go out for coffee all the time. I would love to see that in this space.”
In addition, there are out-of-the-box lattes, including Ginger Date Oatmilk, Maple Tahini, Pistachio, and Sunny Malo, with turmeric, ginger, honey, and warming spices. Of note are two soda items: one with house-made fig, lemon, and mint syrup; the other with house-made lemon and thyme syrup.
The lunch menu ranges from bowls and tartines to handhelds and kebab plates. The Spartan bowl includes grilled steak over basmati rice, while the Atlas bowl subs in Amalia’s famous meatballs with marinara. The Farro-Dise Bowl, a vegetarian item, adds portobello mushrooms with butternut squash, pistachios, and parmesan to the ancient grain.
Whipped feta is a Pappas Loli specialty and comes on a tartine with marinated grape tomatoes, shallots, pine nuts, and fresh basil. Grilled steak or chicken are available as toppings as well.
Salads take a creative turn with options such as Mediterranean tuna salad stuffed inside a tomato, along with artichokes, bell peppers, olives, and onion. The house salad, often an afterthought, also bears some unusual touches, including greens, dates, figs, craisins, pumpkin seeds, and crumbled goat cheese, tossed with pomegranate vin.
For Dakos, a Cretan-inspired salad, barley rusks are topped with tomatoes, seasoned red onion, kalamatas and capers, feta, and a sweet white balsamic dressing containing “mountain” oregano. “My father and uncle have olive orchards and make a complex olive oil, which they send me,” Pappas Loli says, “along with Greek oregano from the mountains that is incomparable. It simply smells and tastes different.”
Among the handhelds are Malo Grilled Cheese (with prosciutto, brie, fig compote, arugula, and balsamic glaze on sourdough) and a grilled chicken gyro. “We decided against doing the traditional beef and lamb,” Pappas Loli notes.
Future dinner service will expand to dishes such as spanakopita, grilled octopus with fava beans, and rack of lamb, while ready-made meals and house pita chips will always be available for grab-and-go.
A sure-fire big seller (and a cute play on words), is the Helen of Trio Dip, with tzatziki, charred eggplant, and hummus served with crudités and house-made pita chips, of which Pappas Loli is especially proud.
Similarly, expect to see a lot of her family’s Greek olive oil, as well as an expensive, high-quality feta cheese, called Dodoni. “It’s from the Epirus region of Greece, where my family is from,” Pappas Loli says. “Hey, feta matters! It has to be real feta. To me, that pre-crumbled feta is not feta.”
Price points are $15-18 for breakfast items and $16-20 for the salads, bowls, tartines, and handhelds.
Leading the kitchen is Yanni Loli, who has worked at Spiro’s restaurant for the past 16 years. “He’s an excellent chef, and he’s also my former husband,” Pappas Loli says with a shrug. “What can I say?”
Cafe Amalia
📍 10907 Manchester, Kirkwood
📞 314-698-2200
⏰ 7 a.m.–3 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday
The Backstory
“I love feeding people and seeing them eat what I’ve made and enjoy it,” Pappas Loli told SLM. I love for people to share food around the table—that is important to me, and it’s how I grew up. I want it to feel like you are at my home and I’ve whipped up something, have made some coffee, and we are just sitting around engaging in spirited conversation. That is Mediterranean hospitality, and that’s what I want to give to St. Louis.”
A former dental hygienist, Pappas Loli took advantage of a pandemic pause to begin cooking Greek food first for herself, then friends and neighbors. Catering a friend’s daughter’s graduation party lit a spark, which led to more private dinners, which was the impetus to launch a chef for hire business, Amalia Culinary Art.
to serve more people in the community by bringing everything together in one space Pappas Loli also dreams of opening up a brick-and-mortar café to showcase her family’s cuisine;
What can diners expect at Café Amalia? First of all, the restaurant is named after my grandmother; it is also my Greek given name, and I couldn’t imagine naming it any other way but after her. She always used simple ingredients, but they were of the highest quality. That is something that she really reiterated to me. As far as the food, I’d describe it as traditional recipes with a focus on seasonality: Mediterranean, with an emphasis on Greek cuisine. I do want to focus on my family’s cuisine, but I am not going to put myself in handcuffs and only cook Greek food. But when I do Greek food, it is not going to be what people expect. I think a lot of people think of that style of food as just gyro sandwiches and baklava. It’s so much more than that. We will have a gyro, but it will be made with chicken. We will be using the highest-quality olive oil that we can find—we call it liquid gold, and it’s very important to me that we get the best because it is such an important part of the food. And our town, Epirus, is known for really good oregano. My parents spend six months out of the year there, so they handpick it, dry it, and smuggle it back to me. You will see that at the restaurant, as well as Greek honey and feta cheese sourced from producers from the mountains of my family’s town. I also plan on doing a lot of other Mediterranean food, too. I used to babysit for a Jordanian family, so I learned a lot of cooking traditional Jordanian dishes from them. I feel the thread all Mediterranean food has is that when you cook within the season and use fresh ingredients and quality food, it shows on the plate.
What do you want customers to take away from dining at the café? I want people to indulge in taste and tradition. I love for people to share food around the table—that is important to me, and it’s how I grew up. I love feeding people and seeing them eat what I’ve made and enjoy it. I hope Café Amalia is a place where everyone feels welcome to hang out with friends and family. I want it to feel like you are at my home and I’ve whipped up something, have made some coffee, and we are just sitting around engaging in spirited conversation. That is Mediterranean hospitality, and that’s what I want to give to St. Louis.
