Petros [RESTAURANT REVIEW]

For exotic cuisines, the road to acceptance in America is paved with fast food. My Virginia-born wife’s first taste of Mexican food was at a Taco Bell, and a strange and foreign cuisine it was to her three decades ago. Now she devours obscure Oaxacan and Yucatecan specialties and knows the vocabulary of cabrito and al pastor as well as any native Angeleno.

Most Americans learn about Greek food from fast food joints serving grilled meats like gyros or souvlaki and salads laden with feta, tomatoes, and olives– all of which are popular items from back in Athens. A few Greek restaurants in LA go a bit further, with baked items like moussaka and pastizio served amid blaring music and dancing waiters. These too you will find in Greece, but they’re not the whole story. Athens has long boasted a more refined cuisine that emphasizes fresh ingredients and subtle spicing, but until recently there has been nowhere in Los Angeles to find this Hellenic haute cuisine.

Enter Petros, the stylish restaurant on the Metlox Plaza that is one of the most interesting and controversial restaurants in the South Bay. Some who stroll up to inspect the menu are overcome with sticker shock – they’re used to Greek food being cheap food, and a meal at Petros is comparable in price to one at Café Pierre or Rock’n Fish. Those who read that menu a bit more closely will notice that this isn’t the Greek food they’re used to, and they might suspect that something different is going on here. And it is, because not only are the recipes more sophisticated than anything we’ve seen before in LA, the ingredients are top quality, and it shows.

You notice it with your first taste of the tzatziki dip, which is a world apart from the usual sharply flavored, creamy stuff you get on top of your gyro. The yoghurt is made in-house, a rich base for the cucumber, lemon, and garlic that make this dish both tangy and cooling. It took me back to my first trip to Greece, when I learned a lot about the power of simple and natural flavors.

The tzatziki is one of several available dips for the warm, crusty olive bread that arrives at your table soon after you get your menus. The others include a savory mix of cheeses and hot peppers, another of olives and sundried tomatoes, and an excellent mix of fava beans with lemon, tomato, and onion. You can get a sampler plate of all five for fourteen dollars, an interesting way to start a meal with many small tastes.

 Or you can just enjoy the bread with the smooth but powerful garlic sauce that is complimentary, and investigate some appetizers. I’ve made a meal of small plates several times and found the nikos saganaki (8.00) to be the single most interesting item. Most Greek restaurants serve saganaki, the white cheese briefly pan-fried in olive oil and flamed with ouzo just before serving. The cheese in question is generally low-quality and salty, but the oil, ouzo, and squirt of lemon balance the flavors and make it quite enjoyable. At Petros there are several versions of saganaki available, some of which resemble the usual version but are made with better cheese. The nikos saganaki is different – the cheese is a mild feta that has been lightly breaded and crusted with sesame seeds and golden raisins, lending fruity and nutty flavors and textures to the toasted cheese. It’s a combination that works brilliantly. 

As much as we were tempted to start with a nikos saganaki and follow it with a procession of small dishes, on a recent visit we decided on a more conventional dinner. For a starter we selected roasted beets with dandelion greens and garlic dip. Dandelion greens are found on more lawns than restaurant plates locally, but people have eaten them for centuries – they were a popular salad green in Elizabethan England. Before you start declaring your lawn as a farm on your tax return, though, you should know that the local variety is bitter and not particularly appetizing. Have them at Petros instead – when prepared with a splash of lemon and vinegar, they’re tasty and refreshing, and a nice side with the roasted baby beets. The only thing that puzzled me about this dish was the inclusion of the garlic sauce on the plate – we already had some on our table, and a few slices of the excellent Epirus feta cheese would have been a better complement to the greens and beets anyway.

For our second course we decided to share the roasted Greek seabass known as lavrake, which was served with braised artichokes, carrots and potatoes (32.00). The fish had the moist interior and crisp crust that is exactly what I like but can’t seem to recreate at home, and it was delicately flavored with olive oil and herbs. The carrot and artichoke mixture looked like a disappointment – more carrots than artichoke, and I really like artichokes – but the balance of flavors was actually excellent, the carrots lightly sweet counterpoint to the artichokes richness.

Our server brought a pair of glasses of wine from their exceptional list of Greek wines, and while I liked the Julia Chardonnay, I swooned over the Boutari Moschofilato. It had the delicate flowery scent of a Riesling and a light crispness of a Sauvignon Blanc, and it’s a wine I could savor by itself or with food.

We continued our meal with a roasted filet of lamb with garlic broccolini and fava beans (28.00), a simple dish with some unexpected subtleties. The lamb filet was exquisite, the textures like an excellent medium-rare steak but far more flavorful, and as tender as any meat I’ve had anywhere. The seasoning on the meat was delicate – olive oil with herbs, probably oregano and pepper, but what else I couldn’t discern. Whatever it was, it was an elegant companion to the lamb. Our server suggested a Gioulis Cabernet that had complex favors and light oak, and we were well satisfied.

For dessert we were offered a variety of Greek pastries, from which we selected bougatsa (8.00). This confection of custard surrounded by flaky pastry was subtly sweet and feather-light – it would have been a great complement to a cup of powerful Greek coffee, and I was tempted despite my determination to cut down on caffeine.

A meal at Petros is a chance to see the elegant side of a casual cuisine – it’s like seeing someone you’ve known primarily as a beach bum wearing formal dress for the first time and realizing that they really do look handsome. They’ve always known they could dress up, but you didn’t. I still enjoy great Greek street food, but when I really want to relive my memories of the best of Athens, I’m gong back to Petros. 

Petros is located at 451 Manhattan Beach Boulevard – parking lot entrances from Valley and Morningside. Open daily for lunch and dinner, wheelchair access good, full bar. Some vegetarian/vegan items. Call 310-545-4100 for reservations.

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