Taverna Cretekou
Alexandria / Greek / $$
How does a 48-year-old restaurant stay fresh? A secret garden tucked behind a historic home doesn’t hurt. Neither does a menu that encompasses regional dishes from across Greece. Factor in tableside visits from owners Christos and Denise Papaloizou, and it might be hard to believe that Taverna Cretekou isn’t a hot new thing.
In fact, the recipes go back much farther than 1973. The Verikoka Aphrodite (Aphrodite’s Apricots) is among a pair of desserts that descend from 400 B.C. Athens. The stone fruits are poached in a white-wine-and-orange-flavored sauce and served over fresh yogurt with honey and walnuts. It sounds simple but tastes like more than 2,000 years of sweet history.
You won’t find such a treat anywhere else in NoVA, nor will you enjoy specialties like the exohikon, a roll of crisp phyllo that shatters open to reveal a stew of melting lamb, cheese, artichokes, and pine nuts, in addition to other tender vegetables. The dish has Cretan origins clearly labeled on the menu, just as a dish of stuffed flounder is marked as hailing from the Aegean. There are few better arguments than Taverna Cretekou that what’s (sometimes very) old is new again.
See this: Three-season patio dining is a hidden treasure, but so are the bright-mural-bedecked walls in a historic home.
Eat this: Satyrikon, exohikon, Verikoka Aphrodite
Service: Friendly, but occasionally forgetful.
When to dine here: You and your crew are eager for a lunch full of Old World charm.
Feature image by Alice Levitt
This post originally appeared in our November 2021 issue’s Best Restaurants cover story. For more food reviews, subscribe to our weekly newsletter.
