The size of El Greco Café on Main Street in Greenfield is deceptive. Viewed from the street, it looks like a small storefront, but the restaurant is deep enough to seat a crowd. Nevertheless, it takes only two people to keep this business going — proprietor Kosta Pitaridis and his assistant, Fotini Falceanu.
Pitaridis ran Greek restaurants around New England, most recently at the Holyoke Mall, before settling in Greenfield. When I interviewed him a couple of weeks ago and asked how long El Greco had been in business, he laughed and told me, “Too long.”
Nevertheless, it is clear that while he and Falceanu work hard — they are both on the job seven days a week — they enjoy what they do.
“I like to be with the customers, chatting with the customers,” said Pitaridis. “They keep us going.”
He described the café’s cuisine as, “an authentic Greek version of fast food.” His menu features such Greek and Middle Eastern staples as kabobs, spanakopita, falafel, Greek salad and the classic gyro, which is pressed lamb with vegetables and yogurt sauce in pita bread.
El Greco also sells basic cheeseburgers, chicken tenders and other American fare for customers — children in particular — reluctant to try the Greek specialties. It offers desserts as well, including Greek pastries and nine flavors of locally made ice cream.
Pitaridis explained that he recently introduced a special $4.99 menu at the restaurant, reducing the prices of several items, including the basic gyro sandwich. The move has proved popular with bargain-conscious customers.
“We found that (the new menu) was the best thing I’ve done since I started wrapping the gyros,” he noted.
Pitaridis gave me a quick history of the gyro in the United States. He explained that it first became popular on these shores in the 1970s.
A Greek-Turkish entrepreneur decided to make the sandwich more accessible to Americans by marketing a machine to roast the cylindrical gyro meat, which cooks vertically by turning around and around.
Pitaridis reminded me that the prefix “gyro” means “to spin,” as in the word “gyroscope.”
The spinning machine was quickly followed by production of the actual meat. Pitaridis explained that most Greek restaurateurs, like him, purchase their gyro meat from a plant in Chicago.
Readers who wish to make gyros at home have a couple of options, Pitaridis told me. They can purchase it dried or frozen on the Internet. They can also construct a gyro-flavored meatloaf at home and wrap thin slices of it in pita bread.
Such a meatloaf would include either all lamb or a mixture of beef and lamb, along with Greek seasonings such as oregano, rosemary and marjoram, salt and pepper to taste and lots of minced garlic.
Pitaridis told me that he is proud that he makes just about everything, except his gyro meat, from scratch and uses local vegetables in-season wherever he can. He is looking forward to the arrival of pickling cucumbers at Butynski Farm in Greenfield, he stated.
The farmstand saves him basketsful of those cukes at a time, which he uses to make the gallons of tzatziki sauce he prepares weekly.
“You can’t beat those cucumbers,” he said with a smile.
I asked whether Pitaridis planned to make any changes at El Greco, and the answer was a resounding, but logical, “no.”
“The minute we make any change we get complaints. Consistency is very important for us,” he said. “We like to have a limited menu. That way, the food is fresh and it’s always served right.”
The gyro he and Fotini Falceanu made for me was certainly served right. The lamb-beef mixture was delightfully flavorful — and the accompanying vegetables and tzatziki sauce made the sandwich feel healthy.
The tzatziki sauce:
Ingredients:
1 cup Greek yogurt (if your yogurt isn’t very thick, strain it through cheesecloth)
1 cup sour cream (you may substitute another cup of Greek yogurt here)
1 large cucumber or 2 pickling cucumbers, diced
salt and pepper to taste
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 cloves garlic, finely minced
1 teaspoon dried, crushed mint
1 teaspoon dried dill
Instructions:
Combine all the ingredients. Store in the refrigerator for up to 1 week.
The Gyro:
Ingredients:
1 piece pita bread
3-1/2 ounces warm, cooked gyro meat, cut about 3/16-inch thick
2 tablespoons tzatziki sauce
1/2 cup chopped lettuce
chopped tomato and onion to taste
Instructions:
Place the bread on a grill or grill pan, and toast it on both sides. Top it with the meat, followed by the remaining ingredients. Serves one.
Tinky Weisblat of Hawley is the author of “The Pudding Hollow Cookbook” and “Pulling Taffy.” If you have a suggestion for a future Blue Plate Special, please email Tinky at Tinky@TinkyCooks.com. For more information about Tinky, visit her website, www.TinkyCooks.com