A big Greek seafood restaurant is getting close at Town Center at Boca Raton. Limani Grille, which runs a dining room on Boston's Seaport waterfront, has a Boca Raton site with its own menu, hours and a hiring page already posted, giving its address as 6000 Glades Road, the mall's address. State records show the restaurant's 281-seat floor plan was approved on October 8, the clearest sign yet that the long-promised opening is near. It will be the brand's first restaurant in Florida.

What Limani is

Limani means harbor in Greek, and the restaurant is built around the kind of meal you would eat at one: whole fish, grilled octopus, shellfish and a raw bar, with lamb, steak and souvlaki for the table member who does not want seafood. Its about page leans hard on sourcing. The kitchen says it buys from fishermen and farmers in the United States and around the Mediterranean, uses first cold-pressed olive oil from the Peloponnese, capers from Santorini and saffron from Kozani, and pairs them with local organic vegetables.

The family of restaurants is bigger than one dining room. Limani Grille's site links to two sister brands, the full-service LIMANI restaurants and the Prime 1024 steakhouse, which gives a sense of the operation behind the Boca opening.

What is on the menu

The Boca Raton menu is already posted, and it is long. Sections run from raw bar and Limani specialties to whole fish and fresh cuts, whole fish for two, shellfish, a meat section called The Land, sides, desserts and signature cocktails.

The best deal on the page is lunch. A three-course prix fixe, served daily from 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m., is $34 a person and includes a glass of house red or white. It starts with soup, a trio of Greek spreads (tzatziki, the spicy feta spread ktipiti and garlicky skordalia) or a Greek salad, moves to lavraki, the mild Mediterranean sea bass, organic salmon, a filet mignon souvlaki or a chicken salad, and ends with walnut cake, Greek yogurt with thyme honey, sorbet or fruit. Grilled octopus, lamb chops and lobster linguine are available as upgrades. There is also an early dinner prix fixe.

The lunch bites include a Maine lobster roll and chicken souvlaki with spinach rice, and the salad list runs from a classic Greek to a watermelon and feta salad with mint.

Where it fits at Town Center

A 281-seat restaurant is large by any standard, and it puts Limani among the biggest sit-down dining rooms at the mall on Glades Road. That matters for a mall whose shoppers and surrounding office workers are looking for a reason to stay after the stores close.

It also fills a real gap. Boca has no shortage of Italian and steak, but a dedicated Greek seafood house with whole fish sold by weight is a rarer thing in Palm Beach County, and it is the kind of place that becomes a standing reservation for birthdays and anniversaries if it lands.

When it opens

Limani has not announced an opening date. Its Boca page already lists hours, lunch from 11:30 a.m. daily with dinner until 8:30 p.m. on Sundays and Mondays, 9 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday, 9:30 p.m. on Fridays and 10 p.m. on Saturdays, but those are best read as a preview. The site is hiring for the Boca location, and reservations run through OpenTable, so the place to watch is the restaurant's own booking page.

When it does open, the order is simple: the Greek spreads, the grilled octopus and a whole lavraki for the table, ideally at a weekday lunch, when $34 buys three courses and a glass of wine within sight of the mall's front doors.