Maria Loi’s eponymous Greek restaurant looks at first like another in the long string of doomed culinary concepts that have been tried over the years in what’s known in restaurant circles as the Compass space, on 70th Street off Amsterdam Avenue. There’s a new sign over the door, of course, adorned with what appears to be a hastily rendered logo featuring loopy script and white leaves against a bright-purple background. The flatly lit, sparsely populated bar area in the front of the house appears the way it did during previous incarnations (“Like the stateroom of a Slovenian cruise ship” was how one dining companion described it to me long ago), and if you feel like lingering there these days, the slightly haunted-looking bartenders will serve you cocktails with hokey cruise-ship names like Taste of Greece and Fire of Patras, which is made with Knob Creek, sweet Greek wine, and a touch of honey.
Once you move into the main dining room, however, the sense of foreboding lifts a little and the mood begins to change. The walls of the endlessly redesigned room are now trimmed in white and decorated with soothing photos depicting the green Nafpaktos coast. There’s a tray of fresh pomegranates by the doorway, along with bottles of Greek wine and loaves of bread. The backs of the chairs are covered in elegant striped satin, and the tables are arranged in neat rows and set with crisp white linens. Unlike in the past, they’re actually filled with diners, merrily tucking into hot baked spinach pies threaded with feta, platters of keftedakia meatballs, and dainty cheese croquettes garnished with a fig compote. Some nights, you might even see Loi herself—the self-proclaimed Martha Stewart of Greece—bustling around the room, greeting customers with her practiced laser-beam smile.
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