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Food guide

How to find good Greek food

Greek food in the United States mostly means a gyro, a Greek salad and a diner. All three are fine, and none of them is much like eating in Greece, where the cooking is vegetable-heavy, olive-oil-based and seasonal.

What separates a good one from a bad one

  • Olive oil used generously and well — Greek cooking is built on it. Vegetable dishes in the ladera tradition are cooked in olive oil until soft and served at room temperature, and they are the heart of the cuisine.
  • Vegetable dishes as mains — Gigantes, briam, horta, gemista, fasolakia. A menu with a real section of these is cooking Greek food rather than Greek-diner food.
  • Whole grilled fish, sold by weight — The standard at a good taverna. Being shown the fish before it is cooked is normal and a good sign.
  • Feta that is actual feta — Sheep and goat milk, brined, sharp and crumbly. Cubes of mild white cheese are not the same thing.
  • Yoghurt and lemon everywhere — Both used as seasoning rather than garnish. Tzatziki should be thick, sharp and heavy with garlic.

What to order

  • Mezedes — The small plates. Taramasalata, tirokafteri, saganaki, grilled octopus, dolmades. Order several and share.
  • Horta — Boiled wild greens with olive oil and lemon. Simple, cheap, and a genuine test of whether a kitchen cares.
  • Whole grilled fish — Branzino, sea bream, sardines. With nothing but oil, lemon and oregano.
  • Slow-cooked meat — Kleftiko, stifado, youvetsi. The winter side of the cuisine and rarely on export menus.
  • Souvlaki and gyro, properly — Judge on the pita — it should be soft, oiled and grilled — and on whether the meat is cut from a real vertical spit.
  • Loukoumades and galaktoboureko — The dessert tradition is strong and consistently underordered.

Where to find Greek food

Open listings put 3,704 Greek restaurants across the US. These are the cities and campuses with the most of them.

Cities with the most

New York, NY 124 Chicago, IL 53 Las Vegas, NV 33 Seattle, WA 30 Nashville, TN 30 Tampa, FL 27 Charlotte, NC 25 Columbus, OH 24 Washington, DC 21 San Diego, CA 20 Boston, MA 20 San Francisco, CA 19

Campuses with the most within a mile

Touro University 37 CUNY Graduate Center 35 FIT 26 Baruch 26 NYU 25 The New School 23 Hunter 22 BMCC 15 John Jay 14 UIC 13

A few to start with

Counts are listings in Overture Maps open data (September 2026), counted by the town in each address. Independent places only in the examples above, and they are a starting point rather than a ranking.

How Savor Scout looks for it

Greek searches distinguish taverna-style restaurants from gyro counters and Greek-American diners, which are three different things that all match the same keyword. The matcher reads for vegetable dishes, whole fish and mezze depth on menus, so asking for Greek food returns a taverna rather than the highest-rated diner with Greek in the name.

Find Greek food near you →

Looking in a particular city?

Each of these opens Savor Scout with the location already set, so you can say what you want and it searches from there. It covers 1,000 US cities in total — these are simply the largest.

All 1,000 cities →

When you might want this

Where to eat with a toddler Where to eat on a Sunday night Where to eat when half the group is vegetarian