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Whether you’re looking for a $5 beer with crispy chicken wings or an $8,500 bottle of merlot with locally sourced lamb chops, Greek restaurant TAVERNA offers both.
TAVERNA has been serving farm-to-table, upscale Greek cuisine in Palo Alto since 2018 and is gearing up to open its second location in Portola Valley Friday, March 14. Created by Thanasis Pashalidis and longtime friend Hakan Bala, TAVERNA’s newest location, in the former Old Port Lobster Shack within Ladera Country Shopper, will feature the same all-day menu, weekend brunches, cocktails and extensive wine options as its Palo Alto restaurant.
“(We serve) handcrafted food that’s made with passion and locally sourced ingredients and, first and foremost, an experience that transports you to Greece,” Pashalidis said.
The decision to expand to Portola Valley was influenced by the owners’ love of the town (they love to hike and bike in the area), as well as demand from residents to open a TAVERNA closer to them.
“I’m in love with Portola Valley,” Pashalidis said. “It reminds me a lot of a Greek village.”
Born in Queens, New York, Pashalidis learned to cook from his parents, who had immigrated from northern Greece.
“Both my father and my mother were in the kitchen all the time at home,” he said.
He grew up in diners, starting as a busser and working up to server. Pashalidis moved to California and worked at Kokkari in San Francisco before working at Palo Alto’s Evvia and later Michelin-starred The Village Pub in Woodside. It was 2008 when Pashalidis met Bala – both were servers at Evvia.
“It’s serendipitous and actually very interesting that he’s Turkish and I’m Greek. As countries, we’re displayed as enemies throughout antiquity,” Pashalidis said. “Our love for food, wine and hospitality brought us together outside of work.”
Both Pashalidis and Bala have an affinity for cooking and would often barbecue and cook at friends’ gatherings. From there, their network grew and friends of friends would invite them to cook for other events. They created a catering company, expanding to a 40-seat brick and mortar in Palo Alto, then growing the restaurant to 200 seats.
It may be a farm-to-table fine-dining restaurant, but TAVERNA aims to be far from pretentious. It even has a kids’ menu ($4.25-$12.95) with Greek fries, spanakopita, chicken souvlaki and a grilled cheese sandwich made with kasseri cheese and brioche.
“The parents get it for their kids, but then they actually want it for themselves,” said Pashalidis, a father of five. “I don’t use the term kid-friendly or not kid-friendly. We’re human-friendly.”
The all-day menu, created by Pashalidis and Bala, features bites ($5.95-$99), small plates ($12.75-$24.95) and entrees ($24.50-$66.75). Standout bites include TAVERNA’s tzatziki, crispy zucchini cakes (kolokithokeftedes) and cast-iron seared Greek meatballs (keftedakia), which is Pashalidi’s favorite dish on the menu.
“It’s a northern Greek specialty,” Pashalidis said. “(In Greece,) you just go to a small little taverna and you meet a friend. You drink a glass of wine and you have a couple little bites, tapas-style. And you spend a couple hours just hanging out and catching up.”
While crispy chicken wings (fterouges) may not be the most authentic Greek dish, it was added to the menu because of his son’s end-of-the-school-year party.
“I love spicy wings, and I can’t find them anywhere,” Pashalidis said. “If I do, they’re usually subpar.”
So he called his butcher for 20 pounds of wings and asked his chef if he could make wings.
“And he made me some gangster buffalo wings,” Pashalidis said.
He decided to “Hellenize” or “Greekafy” the buffalo wing recipe with the inclusion of a creamy feta dip. The wings were so popular, he added them to TAVERNA’s menu.
“Six pieces for $12.95, have that with a cold Greek beer or a glass of wine. Call it a day,” Pashalidis said.
For small plates, he recommends the Greek village salad (Horiatiki salata), made with Epiros feta and local Kumato tomatoes in the winter or local heirlooms in the summer.
For an entree, Pashalidis said you can’t go wrong with the grilled Spanish octopus salad (oktapodi salata) or lamb rib chops (arnaki) sourced from Superior Farms in Sacramento.
“In a blind tasting side-by-side, Australian, New Zealand, Colorado and California, even though the California (lamb) was exponentially more expensive in terms of pricing for the meat, the quality blows it away, and so we use California lamb,” he said.
DoorDash is a huge part of TAVERNA’s business, Pashalidis said, and the chicken souvlaki family combo meal ($59.95) is one of its most popular delivery orders. Featuring six chicken souvlaki sticks, tzatziki, three housemade pitas, potato wedges, steamed greens, Greek salad and a dessert of yogurt, honey and walnuts, Pashalidis said it’s “a feast for two or meal for up to four.”
The drinks menu features Greek takes on classic cocktails, as well as an extensive wine program with California wines, biodynamic Greek wines and the best wines from France and Italy, according to Pashalidis.
Pashalidis personally enjoys Negronis and Manhattans, so he created the Hellenegroni by replacing the gin with Tsipouro Idoniko, a Greek grappa, and the NYC, adding Greek brandy Metaxa 7 to a Manhattan.
But TAVERNA’s two most popular drinks might come as a surprise: the CDMX, a mezcal margarita, and Anatolitiko, an Eastside cocktail made with Greek spirit mastika. Mastika is a liqueur from the island of Chios that’s derived from mastic trees, which ancient Greeks made chewing gum out of.
“It’s aromatic, but it’s not overwhelming,” Pashalidis said. “It also has nutritional benefits as a vitamin source. It settles your stomach, just like the Italians have digestifs.”
And for a restaurant offering bottles of wine costing upwards of $8,500, it’s almost unbelievable it offers beer for just $5.
“People are like, ‘Why don’t you raise the price of beer?’” Pashalidis said. “I’m like, ‘Because I don’t want to. I don’t want to have a $9 beer. I want an imported Greek beer, my favorite beer.’”
Despite TAVERNA coming with the label of fine dining, Pashalidis emphasized his restaurant is for everyone.
“Whether you’re in a business suit or if you just got off your bicycle, you’re going to be treated exactly the same,” he said.
And Pashalidis isn’t planning on stopping at Portola Valley – he hopes to continue to expand TAVERNA, aiming next for San Francisco.
“My goal is to make people happy and to continue making people happy,” he said.
TAVERNA, 3130 Alpine Road, #300, Portola Valley; Instagram: @tavernarestaurant. Beginning March 14, open Monday to Friday from 11:30 a.m. to 9 p.m., Saturday and Sunday from 10:30 a.m. to 9 p.m.
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