Flying firmly under the local restaurant radar for the past several months is a cozy 32-seat boîte in 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 franchised operation at The Eatery inside the Metropolitan Square Building downtown. (On Monday, November 11, the Westport location will celebrate its 4th anniversary by offering gyros for $4.)
When Dino’s Deli is open (Monday through Friday for lunch), the space is used for overflow seating. But on the weekends, the lights are dimmed, the menu changes, and wine corks start popping. (In milder weather, the party spills onto the front and side patios.)
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The menu includes a handful of sandwiches, salads, and 10 sharables—three kinds of flatbread, hummus, Greek nachos, Mediterranean bruschetta, and two sampler platters, including the Taste of Greece, with gyro meat, spanakopita, feta and kasseri cheeses, kalamata olives, tzatziki, and warm pita bread.
The white wine list corrals six offerings from Greece, plus a smattering 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 discovered the 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 private label two of them,” he says.) All wines are available by the glass, a third bottle, and bottle.
The beer list includes several of the so-called “St. Louis family” beers, Truly Hard Seltzer, and Mythos, a Greek lager from Mythos Brewery, a subsidiary of Carlsberg since 2008.
The restaurant/wine bar is open only on weekend nights (with additional seating available in the deli space, which is also open for business at that time) likely until the weather breaks.
At present, there is but one glaring omission: With a name like Opa, the place is begging for some flaming saganaki. “I haven’t been able to perfect it yet,” admits Polimeropoulos. “But when I do, I bet you’ll see that show at every table.”
