He made his name in Kansas City as a wine retailer. Now check out his new wine bar
Ryan Sciara is known around town as a wine retailer — he co-founded Cellar Rat in the Crossroads, and for the last decade he’s owned Underdog Wine Co. at the Crestwood Shops on the edge of Brookside.
But his roots are in restaurants. His first job was busing tables at the long-closed John Francis Restaurant in downtown Overland Park, and he was the opening general manager and sommelier at 40 Sardines, the Leawood restaurant founded in 2002 by The American alums Michael Smith and Debbie Gold.
Now he’s finding his way back into the world of hospitality. On Wednesday, he opened Vita’s Place, a wine bar at 5514 Oak St., just around the corner from Underdog.
“It’s something I think you’re starting to see more across the country,” Sciara said Tuesday afternoon. “People with restaurants getting into retail, or people who own a wine shop opening a restaurant, or a hybrid of both. It makes sense. You already have customers who trust you and your wine selection.”
The space, formerly Salon Latifa, is a slim 750 square feet, remodeled by Hammer Out Design’s John O’Brien, whose other recent projects include Earl’s Premier and Nighthawk. Little trace of the salon remains. Visitors who pass through a newly built dark-wood vestibule can grab a seat at the dark-wood bar, where the creamy yellow backsplash matches leather banquettes along the back walls.
“I kind of had a vision for the place, but nothing like what (O’Brien) was able to do,” Sciara said. “It’s a 100-year-old building, and the most important thing for me was for this to feel like it’s been here forever.”
On one of the walls is a faded photo of a woman teaching a cooking class at the Don Bosco Community Center. That’s Vita (rhymes with cheetah), Sciara’s grandmother, and he spent a lot of time in her Columbus Park kitchen while growing up. “I actually almost named my youngest daughter after her,” Sciara said. The bar gave him another opportunity to pay tribute to Grandma Vita.
The wine list, as one might imagine, is deep, and the cocktails largely center around wine-based drinks, gin and aperitivos — Italian pre-meal drinks that are typically lower in alcohol and a bit bitter.
“Everybody knows about Aperol and Campari, but a lot of people don’t realize there are all these great wineries making their own aperitivos,” Sciara said. “We have Campari and Aperol, but I’m kind of hiding them a little toward the back of the bar. I’m trying to push people to try some of these artisan aperitivos.”
Sciara is especially psyched about his selection of vermouth. At present, he has 16 varieties stocked behind the bar, with more on the way.
“In the U.S., people think of vermouth as a component of a cocktail, but in Spain or Argentina or Italy it’s served on the rocks with an orange twist, often with a splash of club soda,” Sciara said.
Rather than a happy hour, Vita’s offers a “vermouth hour” from 4 to 6 p.m., when customers can enjoy discounted versions of the drink alongside bar snacks.
The modest, Mediterranean-tinged food menu — Vita’s doesn’t have a full kitchen — was put together by Dave Crum, a former chef at The American and Bluestem who now works for Arrowhead Meats. It features four small $6 items that come on toasted bread (warm goat cheese, black olive and tomato; ricotta, honey and Calabrian chiles), plus four more substantial options in the $14-16 range, each served with a side of focaccia. Those include a country pate served with grainy mustard and brie, and a 6 ounce Italian tuna with oil-cured olives and peppers.
“Think about the ingredients that would be on a cheese and charcuterie plate — we’re sort of reimagining those into a more composed dish, rather than separate components,” Sciara said.
Vita’s is sourcing bread from Blackhole Bakery and some meats and desserts from Broadway Butcher Shop.
Hours for now are 4 to 10 p.m. Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday, and 4 to 11 p.m. Friday and Saturday.
