From the restaurant's website:
"The Southern European menu at Araka draws its influence from France, Italy, Spain, and Greece; as the atmosphere is designed to provide a tasteful, elegant, and unique experience. ... Chef Mark Curran, formerly of Larkspur Restaurant in Vail, Colo., ... has created an exciting menu with seasonal items from regional farmers and locally raised chicken, pork and beef, fresh fish from dayboat fishermen, shellfish flown in daily from the coast of Maine, both regional and imported farmstead cheeses, housemade charcuterie, pastas, flatbreads, and delectable desserts."
Full bar. Serving lunch Mon–Fri, dinner nightly. Voted Best New Restaurant and Best-Lookin' Restaurant in the 2008 Sauce magazine readers poll. Voted Best Decor in the 2008 Riverfront Times critics' poll. One of St. Louis magazine's Top 35 Restaurants of 2008.
"God bless the chef that puts up his own charcuterie. It's that level of attention to detail that's key to the success of Araka, a striking new Southern European-themed restaurant in a brand-new building that once and for all has put to rest memories of the hole in the ground long known as the Clayton Lake."
– Joe Bonwich, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch (A- for food), Nov 15, 2007