Eateries give Roslyn taste of Greek culture

Bill San Antonio

Four restaurants specializing in Greek cuisine have sprung up in Roslyn in the last five years, and while only three remain today, each is connected by a revolving door of owners, locations and menus.

The first to open was Limani in 2008, at 1043 Northern Boulevard, specializing in whole fish seafood dishes, and three years later MP Taverna opened at 1363 Old Northern Boulevard, blending traditional Greek cuisine with the personality of its head chef and owner, a first-generation Greek American named Michael Psilakis. 

This April, Kyma opened at 1446 Old Northern Boulevard, serving coastal Greek seafood and salads while combining part of Limani’s original ownership with the ghost of Trata Estiatorio, which opened at Kyma’s location in October 2009 but closed down in late 2011. 

“Roslyn is as far east as you can get and still be close enough to the city to have that city mentality,” said Remo Christou, one of four ownership partners at Kyma. “The train line coming out from Manhattan on the Port Washington line means there are a lot of people who work in the city and have city sensibilities. It’s the furthest you can be in a suburban setting and still have those Manhattan sensitivities.”

To achieve a Manhattan sensibility in Roslyn, Christou said the restaurant ironically does not employ a modern décor, but rather a more traditional setting unlike what one would expect of a 21st century eatery.

“You come into this place and the décor makes you feel like you could be in Greece,” Christou said. “If you come to Kyma, you get the sense of being transported elsewhere. You feel like you’re somewhere other than Old Northern Boulevard in Roslyn.”

Psilakis, who also oversees MP Taverna locations in Astoria and Irvington in addition to the Manhattan restaurants Kefi and Fishtag, said the restaurant’s Roslyn clientele shares characteristics of the urban demographic expected in Astoria despite its suburban setting.

MP Taverna’s Roslyn location, Psilakis said, caters to families that do not eat out often with a conservative décor and a printed children’s menu. 

But, Psilakis said, customers visit MP Taverna’s Roslyn location with the frequency and knowledge of food that Psilakis said is reminiscent of the urbanites he’s experienced in Queens and Manhattan.  

“They’re very educated and savvy consumers who know what they want and are very loyal, but they are also demanding and let you know what they like,” Psilakis said.

Franco Sukaj, who has been with Limani since its opening and became the restaurant’s general manager in 2010, said his restaurant serves food crucial to the “Mediterranean diet,” which is heavy on seafood, vegetables and olive oil but light on the stomach and good for one’s health. 

“This is the cuisine that’s going to help you live longer,” Sukaj said. “Everything is light, everything is simple.” 

Sukaj, who was born in Albania but raised in Greece, said that before the end of the year, Limani will open an 8,000 square-foot restaurant on 57th Street in Manhattan, between 5th Avenue and 6th Avenue, in what he considers one of the top locations in the city.

“It shows this place is doing great and we look forward to doing better and better,” Sukaj said. “In order to be the best, you have to serve the community the way you’d serve your family. Greek culture is about hospitality and making sure everybody is happy. Most Greeks are hospitable, it comes from inside you. You don’t buy that. Growing up, that’s what our parents gave us, and we try and express that.”

Chrsitou said Kyma’s menu resembles  Limaini’s more than it does MP Taverna’s because the two restaurants share coastal Greek influences, though it does serve dishes of meat and chicken akin to Greece’s mainland. 

“The way we cook fish is not unique to us, the Italians do it the same way,” Christou said. “The same can definitely be said about Italy, where those on the coast eat sardines and the fish that they could find and that’s what they’ve been known for, and then you go to Spain and you’ll find the same thing. The areas around the Mediterranean Sea eat that way, and certain cuisines have to be identified with a particular moniker and that’s the way Greece is identified right now.”

In the early 2000s, Christou and Sukaj both worked at the Estiatorio Milos, considered by many to be the best Greek restaurant in Manhattan, and each was brought on to open Limani. 

After some time, Christou said he left Limani to pursue other interests in the restaurant business, but returned to Roslyn after Trata closed down and its location became available for Kyma’s investors.

“The space was offered to me,” Christou said. “People knew I was with Limani, so it was a real estate deal that made sense on a lot of levels and made sense for me because the restaurant had been built for the concept I was using, so the turnover on the investment to come in and make it our way was minimal compared to building from scratch. We did a few quick renovations and opened it.”

Christou, who lives in Port Washington, operates Kyma with partners Yiannis Chatiris and Christos Panayiotopoulos, who also own the Greek restaurant Ethos Gallery 51st in Manhattan, and Merkourios Angeliades. The restaurant’s head chef, Chris Kletsides, also came over from Limani.

But Sukaj said he’s noticed too many similarities between the two restaurants since Kyma opened, notably with their Greek salad, a more traditional tomato-based dish different to the one known to most Americans, which includes lettuce and anchovies as base ingredients. 

“[Kyma] basically tried to copy us,” Sukaj said. “The used the line cook from us, not the chef. Those who left this place were not partners, they were not chefs. From the first day, we’ve had the same people. They never had their names on it.” 

Christou maintains that he was among Limani’s initial partners but said his concerns are with his customers, not his competitors.

“I really don’t care too much about what other people do,” Christou said. “I have to care about the customers that come through my door and make them love me and not worry about how much the veal chop is down the street or how much the soup is next door.”

Christou said Roslyn was not chosen as a location with Kyma and MP Taverna in mind, but welcomes the competition that multiple Greek restaurants bring to the food community. 

“It wasn’t done to be resentful or spiteful or as a revenge tactic,” Christou said. “My experience [at Limani] was nothing but amazing. I was given the opportunity to do other things I wouldn’t be able to do otherwise. A lot of people’s livelihoods depend on that place and I wish them nothing but the best.”

After Trata closed, a few of its partners quickly formed MP Taverna as a way of putting a modern spin on traditional Greek dishes, even though Psilakis said the restaurant only uses traditional Greek ingredients to do it.

“I lost my father years ago, and it made me think about what food meant to me and it stopped looking like art and more like a vehicle to create an experience for you to share with the people you’re enjoying it with, and that vehicle has been fused into the identity of what food is for me,” Psilakis said.

Psilakis said his menu includes dishes his family made while he was growing up, that can be eaten in smaller portions such as his grandmother’s meatballs, or eaten as a full meal, like his mother’s cauliflower and cinnamon soup.

“I always tell people that MP Taverna is a reflection of my childhood growing up in a Greek culture with our lives revolving around the church, blended with breaking through that and living in New York and the experiences that have defined me as a first-generation Greek American,” Psilakis said. “It’s not a reflection of what’s better, just different.”

Psilakis said he visits MP Taverna’s Roslyn location at least once a week, but added that he spends most of his time at the Astoria restaurant, which opened just three months ago. 

While he bounces from restaurant to restaurant, Psilakis said each MP Taverna location has a general manager, a director of kitchen operations, a corporate chef and a kitchen chef to keep a sense of consistency with the cuisine and dining experience at each place. 

“The goal is so that you can go to Roslyn and Astoria and have a meal that can be identified as MP Taverna, and we’re trying to develop that corporate consistency in Irvington now to cultivate a population of people who start to think of us and take Greek food into the mainstream, and put us on your list of places you might eat at tonight,” Psilakis said.

Psilakis said Greek cuisine hasn’t yet cracked the mainstream of Long Island’s food ethnicities, citing Italian, American, Chinese and Japanese as the restaurant types frequented most often. 

But with the so-called “food revolution” taking place in small towns and big cities across America, in addition to the growing fitness craze, Psilakis said Greek food has an opportunity to establish itself as a mainstay due to its light nature and health benefits.

If and when that happens, he said, there could be an explosion akin to the spread of different types of Italian restaurants that range from complex sit-down eateries to pizza joints.

“It’s all a matter of how you define the dining experience, and that’s where I think we’re at with Roslyn,” Psilakis said. “We have three Greek restaurants in the same town and they’re all doing very well, and it speaks volumes about the people and their affinity toward Greek food right now.”

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