American diner meets Greek taverna in Lefteris Gyro

By Jeremy Wayne / jwayne@westfairinc.com

“Warning: Our olives have pits” was the first thing that caught my eye on the menu at Lefteris Gyro, a two-month old Greek taverna on the site of the embattled former Hurricane Grill & Wings on Central Avenue in Hartsdale. But was it really a caution or a flex? Is an olive with its pit somehow seems more bona fide than a pitted one? Definitely something to muse on.

Hartsdale is the fourth location for the Lefteris group, which already has restaurants in Mount Kisco, Pleasantville and Tarrytown. Besides the olive pit caveat on the long, laminated menu, I found hot and cold appetizers; soups; salads; vegetarian dishes; meat and seafood kebobs; wrapped sandwiches; traditional platters, including moussaka (layers of beef, eggplant and potato) and gemista (stuffed peppers and tomatoes); as well as steak or chops from the charcoal grill. These were further supplemented by a “specials” menu, which on the hot day I visited featured a refreshing-sounding watermelon and feta salad, mussels with ouzo and barramundi with almonds in a lemon sauce. Surely something for everyone, although choice can be a mixed blessing.

If all of this wasn’t enough, I could also have settled for a hamburger, a turkey burger or chicken tenders with fries. There was also a children’s menu, too, with all the usual suspects

– pizza, fish sticks, baby-burger, but not one suggestion of anything Greek.

To my mind, these “usual suspect” dishes rather devalue the coinage of a Greek restaurant, but the proof of the pastitsio was going to be in the eating, so I was ready to give it a go.

The classic starter of taramasalta is made with carp here. Although I’m used to a smoother, smokier tarama, made with cod’s roe, this more textured carp rendition was not unappealing. Fried calamari were reasonably crisp if a little pale. Mambaildi – stewed eggplant and zucchini – was nice enough but a little overwhelmed by its tomato sauce. A falafel platter, crisp balls with a tzatziki sauce, hit the mark.

With an already groaning table – Lefteris’s portions are nothing if not generous – a main course of vegetarian moussaka was carb-heavy with potato, but a square of pastitsio – the Greek lasagna – was a dish in a higher gear, the meat slow-cooked and the macaroni interlaced with a good béchamel. (A vegetarian version is also offered.)

But it was in the charcoal-grilled dishes at which Lefteris really excelled – boneless ribeye or, in my case, baby lamb chops. These were cooked rare as requested, sweet and tender meat with a delicious char flavor, temptingly presented with a flat-topped mound of yellow rice and a pile of sautéed spinach. Also included in the price of the dish was an accompanying salad that contained shredded lettuce, tomato, feta, baby peppers, red onion, cucumber and small Kalamata olives – oddly without pits despite the menu warning. It was generous, fresh and nicely dressed. The restaurant actually sells its homemade salad dressing in pint and quarter bottles to take home.

As for the restaurant itself, the space is broken up with partitions of faux-stone walls, miniature artificial olive trees in baby barrels and trellises with heavy chains, interwoven with silk flowers – sort of bonsai meets bondage. An inviting square bar with sports screens on three sides dominates the back of the room. The very short wine list is all Greek except for one Italian, and I for one wouldn’t mind sitting at the bar either before or after dinner nursing an ouzo or two –if somebody else were driving, that is.

While Lefteris didn’t quite conjure up the glory of Greece or its islands (it felt more like an American diner with a mild identity crisis than a Greek taverna), and while it could have benefited from a few more imaginative dishes on a briefer menu, the restaurant nevertheless had a pleasing wholesomeness about it. Service was animated and some of the bigger, well-spaced tables and booths lent themselves to family gatherings. As dinner progressed, and with Greek singer Vasilis Karras warbling “My Melancholy Love” on a recording – not that there’s anything remotely melancholy about Lefteris – I found myself liking the place more and more.

For more, visit lefterisgyro.com.