Divine Dining

Ozark's Angeli offers bold Mediterranean flavors with heavenly names and low prices.

There’s a restaurant at highways J and 65 in Ozark that gives you great big portions of whatever you order, but it’s not the food-tossing eatery you are thinking of right now. It’s smaller and quieter, with more garlic and kalamata olives than fried okra and flying bread. It’s a little Mediterranean joint called Angeli, and it’s not just the name that’s heavenly. The big plates full of food are pretty great, too.

I ate at Angeli during a Friday dinner-time rush, and the place had a healthy crowd. Conveniently near the highway, it was a great spot to meet my dad and his coworkers, who were passing by on their way from St. Louis to Harrison, Arkansas, for business. I’d never been to Angeli before and wasn’t sure what to expect, and the décor was surprising to me, the wall colors bolder than I expected. They are a warm terra cotta hue, making it feel like you’re eating inside a happy little flower pot. The space is mostly open, but curving partial walls separate the dining room tables from the booths and the bar area. The place seems family-friendly. I spotted several kids out to dinner with moms and dads, and we even had our own high chair at our table. I guess it was left there from whomever dined in that spot before us, but no one ever came to take it away. I don’t like when things sit around unused. I wanted to find a baby to put in there, but I didn’t go searching.

We were pretty hungry, so we ordered the sampler and a small pizza to share for appetizers. The sampler is a great choice if you are having trouble deciding which pita-friendly dip you want to try. You get a rather large serving of hummus, spicy tomato spread (made with walnuts and feta) and roasted red peppers with pita triangles for $7.99. The hummus was delicious, but it was outshined by the other two: The spicy tomato spread was bold, tart and savory all at once with earthy notes from the walnuts, and the roasted red peppers came in large chilled slices topped with crumbles of feta cheese. All of them had strong flavors that took over my senses, in a good way.

The pizza menu is somewhat themed, with ethereal names such as Celestial Chicken Pesto, Gabriel’s Special or the Gate to Heaven. We all shared the small Mystical Pizza, just to try it. For $10.99, it came with garlic sauce, mozzarella cheese, sun-dried tomatoes, feta cheese, roasted red peppers and bacon on thin, crisp crust (but not Imo’s-style crackery thin crust). I think the garlic sauce was a big draw, but everything tasted amazing. It was a little on the salty side, and all the ingredients have strong flavors, but they mixed really well, with the sun-dried tomatoes taking center stage. When I go back, I’ll probably order another pizza, perhaps the dangerous-sounding Chicken Diavolo. It has grilled chicken with spicy roasted red pepper sauce, mozzarella cheese, roasted garlic, roasted red peppers and red onions, with optional jalapeño peppers. The spicy food-lover in me would go for the peppers.

For an entrée, I had the Angeli Special sandwich ($7.79), which came with bacon, pesto, mozzarella, spinach, roasted red peppers, lettuce and tomatoes on seasoned focaccia bread that was toasted and crispy. As with the pizza, I adored everything about it other than the fact that it was a wee bit too salty. But I loved how crispy it was (the toasted bread, the lettuce, the bacon), and pesto shined on that bread.

My dad, Tim Pollock, ordered a calzone. Angeli lets you build your own, if you want, from 23 ingredients. He picked Italian sausage, feta and spinach for $9.59. It was huge and packed full, and the delightfully brown crust had garlicky seasoning on top. (I was eating with Dad, which meant I got to try a bite.)

I was pleased with Angeli, especially for the price. Admittedly, we ordered way too many appetizers for our table of four, but only one of us finished our meal. (That guy had ordered the $6.79 gyro, and he must have liked it.) The rest of us made it about halfway through our entrées and had to tap out. That meant lots of leftovers for the next day. Most menu items fall below the $10 mark, unless you get large pizzas. And if you order a salad, ask for the sun-dried tomato vinaigrette. Just trust me on this one. I could drink a mug of it.

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