Christakis Greek Cuisine
For over 30 years, this Greek restaurant has served quality food indoors and outdoors in Tustin
As of the mid-2020s, Orange County has no shortage of Mediterranean restaurants – independents or chains – but that wasn’t the case when Christakis Greek Cuisine opened in 1996, replacing an established Greek restaurant on Tustin’s Newport Avenue. For over 30 years, Christakis has endured all of the restaurant industry’s standard tragedies: the loss of its founders, staffing challenges, and pandemic closures, and yet continues to operate pleasantly decorated indoor and outdoor dining spaces with the sort of kind hospitality that wins repeat customers. Immediately outside the front door, a gated patio with heat lamps seats around 30 people, while a classically Greek aqua blue dining room offers similar capacity inside.
Christakis’ oversized, double-sided, single-page menu is divided into three sections – appetizer “mezes” ($12.50 to $17.50), “salatas & soups” ($8.50 to $22 based on salad size and addition of proteins), and entree “specialties” ($20.50 to $35, with lamb at “market” prices), plus several sides ($5 to $6.50) and non-alcoholic beverages ($4.50 each). There aren’t any surprises on this list: The expected hummus, falafel, gyro, and dolmades grape leaves accompany mousaka, pastitsio, and souvlaki plates, french fries, and potatoes. Wine and dessert menus are separate, the former another full page of choices, and the latter a smaller card with four basic sweets ($5 to $9.50): baklava, galacktobourko pie, an ice cream-topped brownie, and creme brulee.
Judged strictly on food quality, Christakis struck us as only okay. A visual highlight was the saganaki ($17), a piece of kasseri cheese doused with ouzo, flambeed with blue flames, and extinguished with copious squeezes of lemon juice – so much that the lemon overpowered the cheese, even when paired with bite-sized slices of toasted pita. Better in value was the appetizer-sized spanakopita ($14), three large and fairly delicate triangles of puff pastry stuffed with spinach, feta cheese, and herbs: lightly golden outside, the fillings were a touch under lukewarm inside, seemingly having been rushed from fridge to oven to table. Christakis’ only available soup on our visit, avgolemono ($5 cup, $8.50 bowl) appropriately balanced eggy lemon, rice, and chicken flavors, though with scant solids in the cup; of the appetizers, it was the one we’d most likely order again.
Entrees were underwhelming for their prices. Like all of Christakis’ specialties, the lamb gyro plate ($24.50) and chicken souvlaki ($27.50) arrived with a quarter or sixth of a potato nicely flavored in a Greek lemon style, a wan mound of stewed green beans, and a scoop of mildly flavored, soft rice pilaf, all fine. While the chicken was pretty good – slightly charred outside, tender inside, and interleaved with sliced peppers, tomatoes, and pearl onions – it was only a single skewer of meat for that price; the lamb gyro tasted overcooked and crispy, using chopped white onions and a puddle of tzatziki to offset the meat’s dryness. We finished our meal with galacktobourko ($6.50), a phyllo-crusted custard pie that initially looked a little interesting, but separated into phyllo and custard layers when sliced, and tasted more of cinnamon and honey than anything else.
Credit where credit’s due: If we were choosing between Greek restaurants, we’d sooner revisit Christakis than a so-so chain like Nick the Greek, and this family-owned restaurant also deserves a lot of credit for outlasting once-popular Greek chains such as Apola and Daphne’s. That said, our view is that the food at The Great Greek and Chicken Maisón are – despite their chain status – stronger than what we’ve eaten at Christakis, and those willing to cross over from pure Greek to substantially overlapping Persian Mediterranean will find independent places such as 7 Grill to be appealing, too. That said, this is a fine option for Greek fans in Tustin, and given its history, we believe it has the potential to evolve into an even stronger form going forward.
Stats
Price: $$
Service: Table
Open Since: 1996
Address
13011 Newport Ave.
Tustin, CA 92780
714.731.6600
Instagram: @christakisgreekcuisine