Still Got It: Stamatis Restaurant

Ben Yakas/Gothamist

In this city, restaurants come and go faster than you can say "sustainable locavore burger." And even though there are great new additions to the culinary landscape popping up every week, you've gotta give kudos to anyone who can stick it out for over a year. With that in mind, we bring you Still Got It, our tribute to establishments that continue to serve mouthwatering meals and drinks long after the buzz has faded—or if the lingering hype is still justified.

Imagine you've just been in Greece for a few weeks, where every aspect of life seemed as blissfully slow as a snail's crawl. During that time, you headed out every night around 10 p.m. toward one of the small fishing villages on the Aegean with a group of family and friends; you'd sit for hours sipping tsipouro with the warm wind grazing your arms and legs, and slowly work your way through the catch-of-the-day, as well as dozens of small, traditional dishes. Then the minute you set foot in JFK, it all felt as distant as the moon. There may be no Aegean Sea here, but in NYC, we are blessed with the best Greek food, outside of the country itself, in Astoria. And Stamatis Restaurant is one of those excellent, casual places to go to have just such a traditional meal, and recapture a little bit of that spirit.

Stamatis is the kind of local place you'll find real Greeks consistently flocking to year after year—especially because it's less outwardly tacky than many of its neighbors. At the front of the restaurant, you can see all the specials of the day (especially important for picking out the fish); there is no need for reservations, although they do run out of certain dishes as the night goes on, just as in Greece. They offer surprisingly big portions for very reasonable prices, and we heartily recommend going with a group, and ordering as many appetizers as possible—horiatiki (traditional feta, tomatoes, cucumber and onion salad), spanikopita (spinach pie), tzatziki (yogurt and garlic dip), saganaki (salty fried cheese), the grilled octopus, briam (eggplant and tomato sauce with potatoes), dolmathes (meat or rice-stuffed grape leaves), kolokithakia (fried zucchini)—along with one of the specials, such as moussaka, patstisio or lamb chops.

The brightly-lit taverna does get loud as crowds fill it, and only has limited seating in the "outdoor" area in the back, but it is more than made up for by the atmosphere, the generally-friendly wait staff (who really won't shoo you away, even after you've been there for nearly four hours), and the sweetly delicious free desert at the end. Stamatis isn't fancy, and it's not some foreigner's hokey concept of Greece; it isn't quite dipping your toes into the Aegean, but with the right person or people, you may suddenly feel things slow down and stretch out like a warm breeze.