Costas Spiliadis

Art Culinaire, Spring, 2001

The restaurant could house a small fleet. The umbrellaed tables in the cafe-lounge are separated from the dining room by sheer curtains which billow like giant sails on a calm sea. Obese urns crusted with age lay over-turned, months gaping like characters from a Greek tragedy. At the far end of the long bar the meze station looks more like a stall at the market under the weight of artichoke, tomato, and, citrus crates. A glass case with geometric displays of preserved olives and fruits draw one nearer. It cannot, however, compete with the fish display just across the room. Embedded in the mounds of crushed ice are lemons, whole cabbages, garlic bulbs, and sleek scaly creatures with eyes clear and gills pink. Several signs protrude from the ice bearing the epitaph: "Pompano (Florida)," "Fagri (Greece), "Royal Dorado (Greece)," "Sargos (Greece)," and so on. Next to the seafood display, a substantial fish tank, dark with lobsters of linebacker proportion, gurgles in the corner. A seven pound Nova Scotia lobster is pulled from the tank for a ravenous customer. The smallest of the lobsters is four pounds, still a worthy adversary at $30 a pound. From the semi-exposed kitchen a procession of delicacies is delivered to the cosmopolitan dining room. This is not what one typically thinks of when imagining a Greek restaurant. After three years on the upper east side of Manhattan, Owner Costas Spiliadis is setting a new tone for Greek cuisine. Spiliadis has been celebrating the cuisine of his native country for over twenty years in Montreal, Canada. A self-taught culinairian from the Peloponesian region of Greece, he is proud to share his heritage with those who are unacquainted with the clean simple flavors of Greece. The simplest of seafood preparations are emphasized. Fish are cooked in a metal grate on the grill; the fish doesn't actually touch the flame. A brick oven is also used for slow roasting or finishing a dish. A large part of Spiliadis's philosophy requires buying and providing the best caught seafood, as the s eafood display can attest.

It is important to Spiliadis that the Greek fishing and agricultural traditions are observed. As he notes, fish are caught on small boats, using hooks not nets. This is an ecologically minded practice for it prevents over fishing and eliminates by-catches. There are several farmers whom Spiliadis honors, the honey from the island of Kythera in the Aegean sea, the 'My Sister's Olive Oil' produced by Costas' sister Vivi, and Greek oregano, the restaurant's trademark.