Every traveler passes through New York City at some point but a meal at Loi Restaurant may be a good enough reason by itself to go to NYC! If there is a Greek Heaven, the food served there must be prepared in the kitchen of Loi Restaurant and shipped from its location at 208 West 70th Street.

Here’s the scoop:
A stone’s throw from Lincoln Center, great boutique shops and cinemas, you step off of 70th Street and into a serene world lighted with candles everywhere.

It doesn’t matter what you order. . . it will be a delight for your eyes, your mouth and your tummy! From the authentic Greek salad created with the freshest, ripest, juiciest tomatoes, olives, cucumbers and missing the lettuce that doesn’t belong in a Greek salad. You’ll find your salad laced with dressing perfumed with the perfect combination of herbs and spices as the introduction to a meal prepared with attention to the tiniest details. And your taste buds will continue to rejoice to the very end of your dinner where you’ll be tempted with the best desserts (try the Ekmek!!) which you’ll find prepared and presented with absolute perfection.

I took my good friend, Arie Boris, The Cruise Gourmet, to Loi Restaurant a few weeks ago and he’s still carrying on about the delicate spinach pies infused with flavors he’d never experienced before! And this is the Cruise Gourmet!

The executive chef/owner of Loi Restaurant is Maria Loi, owner of 3 restaurants in Greece, 2 in Athens and one on the edge of the sea in Nafpaktos, author of over 30 cookbooks on Greek cooking and of the official cookbook for the Olympics when they were in Greece, star chef of a television show about Greek cooking seen on a global Greek station, and the driving passionate force at Loi Restaurant whose mission is to know her patrons by name and to welcome each guest into her restaurant as she would into her home.

In addition to a relaxed bar and dining area and the larger dining room surrounded by a panoramic mural of the sea that creates an Aegean atmosphere, there are several individual glass-enclosed dining rooms that seat small to large groups for private dinners within the larger space. Long linen eyelet curtains hang within the private dining rooms to be available for total privacy at the wishes of the guests. The typically-Greek curtains not only add authenticity to your dining experience but add a warm and emotional connection to Greece because Maria Loi brought these curtains from Greece where they used to hang in her grandmother’s home there.

That very sense of warmth, style, charm and humanity that connects Greece with Loi Restaurant in Manhattan is also reflected in the warmth, style and charm of Maria Loi who checks with every table of patrons every evening to get their feedback on their dining experience. I’ve now dined at Loi’s three times and can attest to the remarks of happy diners who use words like ‘fantastic,’ ‘wonderful,’ ‘exceptional’ and ‘extraordinary to describe every course.

The menu at Loi’s Restaurant provides many Greek specialties that you may be familiar with in addition to an assortment of other Mediterranean-style dishes in every food category from seafood to vegetarian offerings so that there is something for every mood and dietary regimen. In addition to the unique skills and talents of Maria Loi and her culinary team, you can count on wholesome, fresh, succulent food products that are lucky to move from the sea and from farms to Maria Loi’s kitchen and onto the table of admiring hungry diners!

Loi’s Restaurant. . . a little bit of Greek and Mediterranean Heaven in New York City. Your first visit will make you a believer!

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 19th, 2012 at 5:13 am and is filed under On the Fly!. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.