Years ago, long before cooking professionally was even a passing consideration, Amy Pappas Loli would regularly receive the ultimate compliment from her then-toddler son: “Mom, you’re the best ‘cooker.’ You need to open a restaurant.”
Today, roughly two decades later, Pappas Loli is on the cusp of doing just that with Café Amalia (10907 Manchester). Slated to open this spring in Kirkwood, the Greek and Mediterranean restaurant is inspired by her family traditions and culture. It’s not the way she envisioned her professional life going, but the dental-hygienist-turned-chef can’t imagine having it any other way.
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“I am so happy about this,” says Pappas Loli. “I know it is right, and I am super excited to showcase this food and introduce spirited Mediterranean hospitality to the community.”
You grew up in south St. Louis as the daughter of Greek immigrants. How did that experience inform your views on food? I am first-generation Greek American, and food is essential in our culture. It’s the center of our lives, and the table is our place of gathering and talking. I grew up living in a two-family flat in South City and would sneak downstairs every Saturday morning to watch my grandmother start the day. She’d bake bread and make her pita. This was the space where, at a young age, I learned all these things while also building a relationship with my grandmother, so it’s special in that sense as well. My grandmother was a huge gardener, so she always had fresh herbs and all kinds of greens. That’s how I also developed a love of using fresh seasonal foods, which is truly the base of all of our cooking.
How did your family stay connected to their heritage in Greece? My family’s roots are in a town called Epirus, which is in the northwestern part of Greece, nestled between the mountains and the Ionian Sea. It’s a region known for its pita. As a kid, I would travel there every other summer, but as I’ve gotten older, I’ve been going every year to refine my skills and learn from my dad’s sisters how to tweak things. My aunts are all gardeners and share their crops with one another, and my family has orchards and olive trees and make high-quality olive oil. Here, when I was growing up, my grandparents and parents always had family and friends over. There were lots of spirited conversations. That’s where my love of entertaining and sharing food with people came from.
You were an avid home cook, but you never pursued cooking professionally until a few years ago. How did that come about? I was a dental hygienist for 25 years. When the pandemic hit, our office closed for 12 weeks, and just like so many other people, I was totally lost. Honestly, I was traumatized. This was all I’d known, and I had no idea what I was going to do because I thought my career was over—that dental hygiene was over. One day, I got up and started baking bread and making all kinds of food because it felt so comforting to me. I cooked so much that I had all of this extra food sitting around, so I dropped it off to family and friends. One day, my friend asked if I could make what I’d made for her again and she would pay me. I refused to let her because this was really my pleasure, and it was bringing me some kind of peace and calmness. That same friend has a daughter who loves Mediterranean food, and she asked me to cater her graduation party. That’s where it all really started. After that, people started hiring me for private events in their homes and meal prepping, and it just took off.
How did you finally decide to leave your dental hygiene career to open a restaurant? One of my private clients owns property in St. Louis, and she told me that they had the perfect space for me and that I should consider opening my own brick-and-mortar. Even though the pandemic taught me to be fierce and pivot and that change is good, dental hygiene was a career I loved. But then that same friend called and said she had another space that was absolutely perfect and that I had to do it. They said I needed to share this with more than just my private clients and that I needed to grow it. At that point, I felt that this butterfly had landed on my shoulder again, so I’d better run with it.
Was it difficult leaving behind your other job? It was really hard coming to terms with telling my boss that I had to leave. I think I hid in the office for a while before I could tell him. I’d been there 15 years and didn’t want to leave my patients. Plus, the demand for dental hygienists is so high, and offices haven’t fully recovered from [the pandemic]. I felt torn about leaving my career, but I am so happy about this that I know it is the right move. I have done dentistry; now I need to do something that makes me happy. It’s time to touch people in a different way.
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.