Eater critic Robert Sietsema offers a list of five must-try Greek American restaurants around the city, plus five that are also noteworthy for food and atmosphere.
In the 1870s, some of New York City’s first Greek immigrants arrived from Sparta, a city in the Peloponnese — an amoeba-shaped mainland peninsula where a drought had recently decimated the all-important currant crop. Until the 1920s, when immigration quotas were established, many Greeks hailed from the Peloponnese, though subsequent waves appeared from Crete, other Aegean islands, and Cyprus. Increasingly, as the immigration restrictions were relaxed in the 1960s, Greeks more often hailed from Athens, Thessaloniki, and other mainland cities.
The first newcomers settled downtown in what is now the Financial District, where St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church, across the street from the World Trade Center, was destroyed in the 9/11 attacks. Later they chose Hell’s Kitchen. There, they established grocery stores, bakeries, restaurants, and coffee houses specializing in sweet phyllo pastries washed down with gritty Greek coffee. By the 1960s, the Greek community moved to Astoria; it became one of the largest such enclaves in North America. Over the years, dozens upon dozens of Greek restaurants opened in Astoria, of which at least 20 still remain.
Greek food is a collection of regional cuisines, and it was in New York City that they were merged into a single standard menu. In fact, Greek cooking is well-aligned with modern dietary preferences, emphasizing vegetables, fish, and olive oil — favoring garlic and pungent herbs like oregano and dill as flavorings. Delectable standard dishes include simply cooked whole fish served with just a squeeze of lemon, charcoal-grilled octopus, spinach pies, Greek salads planked with feta, pork meat balls, lamb shish kebabs, rabbit stews, and bread dips featuring fish roe, eggplant, potatoes, and yogurt.
While the cuisine has evolved over the years through the contributions of such modern New York City Greek-American chefs as Michael Psilakis, Maria Loi, and Jim Botsacos, many restaurant still serve the classic menu, unreconstructed from its roots in the Attic homeland. Here are some of those places.
The Five Best
When Periyali appeared on Manhattan’s Flatiron scene 29 years ago, it was a revelation: a place that honored Greek cuisine with a fine-dining setting — on par with the way Italian and French cuisines were presented. No Greek flags hanging on the walls or miniature models of the Parthenon. Instead, owners Nicola Kotsoni and Steve Tzolis presented a string of subtly lit dining rooms with linen napery, fine art on the walls, and a billowy white tented ceiling that evoked the cliffside houses of Santorini.
The menu favored imported Mediterranean fish perfectly grilled, head and tail included (though for the squeamish, a fish could be fileted), bread dips more delicately prepared and plated, vegetables such as artichokes and yellow beets lavishly deployed, and desserts offered with real panache. But the signature was grilled octopus: curling tentacles touched by char, all at once crisp, spongy, gelatinous, and briny. According to William Grimes in Appetite City, Periyali was the first restaurant to introduce the eight-legged creature to a mainstream audience, instantly kindling a popular penchant that has continued unabated to this day. 35 W 20th St, (212) 463-7890
It was probably back in the 1940s that Greek-owned diners first appeared, offering middle American standards like hamburgers and egg breakfasts, but with a sideline in spinach pies and moussaka. Diner-type establishments of a similar vintage that specialize in Greek food dot the five boroughs, and Plaka is one of the foremost. The restaurant, named after an ancient neighborhood in Athens, occupies a strategic spot in downtown Bay Ridge, recalling a time when Greek immigrants were a major presence there.
The menu offers pita sandwiches, including gyro with tzatziki sauce; pork and lamb shish kebabs; moussaka and pastitsio casseroles; saganaki flaming cheese; Greek salads and bread dips; and, edging into diner territory, hamburgers in several configurations, including a feta cheeseburger deluxe. While the orange-scented Greek sausages called loukaniko are available separately as a starter, the restaurant uses Italian fennel sausages on the appetizer assortment, showing how Italian neighbors have influenced the Greek cuisine of Bay Ridge. Yay, New York City! 406 86th St, Brooklyn, (718) 680-3056
Stelios Papageorgiou fled Cyprus — an island closer to Lebanon than mainland Greece — in 1985, just as Turkish troops were invading his part of the island. Three years later, he founded Zenon, a rustic taverna dedicated to preserving Cypriot home-style cuisine. The room is decorated with giant hand-painted murals of Cyprus, making you feel like you’re looking out the window on a sunny island day. A menu that rotates by days of the week offers seven or eight specialties daily, while other parts of a sprawling bill of fare feature every Greek dish you’ve ever heard of. All are well prepared, tasting pungently of lemon, oregano, and green olive oil.
Cypriot specialties include sheftalia, shotgun-shell-shaped pork meatballs that have been charcoal grilled to perfection (they may remind you of Balkan cevapi); trahana, a wonderful, oddball soup of cracked wheat and dried yogurt, with little planks of haloumi cheese as croutons; and arni tava, spring lamb baked in parchment with orzo and artichokes. Wines are available by the bottle or carafe, and no place in Astoria makes you feel more like you’re in Cyprus. 34-10 31st Ave, Queens, (718) 956-0133
There’s no homier Greek restaurant in Astoria than Gregory’s 26 Corner Taverna. A porch out front holds a handful of tables, sometimes sharing space with buckets filled with live dogfish and porgy earlier delivered by Long Island fishermen. Inside, in the dining rooms — which feel like part of a compact house — you’ll find a painting of the windmills of Mykonos, red-checked tablecloths, blue-and-white Greek flags, and a partly open kitchen, where the sizzling of grilling seafood can be heard. The staff is unfailingly friendly, and Greek immigrants share tables with destination diners in search of some of the best and most reasonably priced Greek food in town.
You can’t go wrong opting for a meat, fish, or vegetarian meal. The kolokithokeftedes (eggy zucchini fritters like hockey pucks) fall into the last category, and so do the Greek salads and flaming cheese app called saganaki. Sausages, meatballs, and grilled lamb chops are key meat choices, and there’s often a weekend special of baby goat or lamb. The fish selections are especially good, whether fried smelts or dogfish (accompanied by the raw-garlic potato dip skordalia), or whole grilled porgy, red snapper, or sea bass. If for some reason Gregory’s is too crowded, other old-timers Telly’s Taverna and Stamatic are just down the avenue. 26-02 23rd Ave, Queens, (718) 777-5511
Hundreds of clay pots hang from the ceiling at Pylos, a Greek word that refers to things made of clay. The proprietor of this elegant East Village restaurant just off Tompkins Square Park is Athens native Christos Valtzoglou, who founded it in 2003, just when the short dish craze was commencing. Thus, the menu at Pylos features more apps, hot and cold short dishes, and substantial sides than main courses. The de facto small plates are accompanied by a mainly Greek wine list organized by grape. Many of the recipes were originally inspired by the cookbooks of Diane Kochilas, the foremost author of Greek cookbooks.
Thus, Pylos offers a lot of unusual dishes that you won’t find elsewhere, many involving vegetables. Here, find moussaka layered with artichokes smothered in béchamel (it’s delicious!), three Greek cheeses melted into a fondue and served in a clay pot with pita, gigante beans stewed with tomato and dill, and light little meatballs shot with mint that look like tiny Frisbees. 128 E 7th St, (212) 473-0220
Here Are Five More
Opa! Opa! Souvlaki (28-44 31st St, Queens, 718-728-3638) — The interior of this old timer under the N tracks is a blue Mediterranean fantasy, and specialties such as pork souvlaki (shish kebab) come plated with french fries, tzatziki, olives and pickled peppers, pitas, and a Greek salad.
Spartan Souvlaki (6824 8th Ave, Brooklyn, 718-748-5838 ) — Owner George Lykovrezos comes from Sparta, and he founded this bizarrely decorated place in an obscure location at the end of 8th Avenue just off the Ft. Hamilton Expressway. The gyros are superb and so are the spanakopita (spinach turnovers), which are often freshly made to your order.
Taverna Kyclades (228 1st Avenue, 212-432-0011) — Named after a group of Greek islands rich in Attic lore (Apollo was supposedly born on Delos), the original Taverna Kyclades was founded in 1996, but a very nice branch now exists in the East Village. Octopus and sea bass are outstanding choices, edging into such Italian fare as fried calamari and stuffed clams.
Molyvos (871 7th Ave, 212-582-7500) — Periyali paved the way for Greek luxury dining, and Molyvos in Midtown answered the call in 1997, providing amazing (and amazingly expensive) whole fish, many imported from the Mediterranean, sold by the pound in a dramatic setting.
Ithaka (308 E 86th St, 212-628-9100) — Named after Ulysses’ home town, the whitewashed Ithaka was a long-running West Village staple when it moved to the Upper East Side in 2003. Chef Harry Hatziparaskevas turns out a menu of traditional Greek fare nicely balanced between meats and fishes.
Check out the other posts in the 10 Old-Fashioned series:
10 Old-Fashioned Italian-American Restaurants to Try in Brooklyn
10 Old-Fashioned Italian-American Restaurants to Try in New York and Jersey City
10 Old-Fashioned French Bistros to Try in New York City
10 Old-Fashioned Spanish Restaurants to Try in New York and New Jersey