Ithaki Estiatorio
Ithaki rounds out the list at thirty-three because it arrived on Halsted at a moment when Greektown needed someone to raise the standard, and it is doing exactly that.
At 314 S. Halsted, in the center of a Greektown corridor that had been running on legacy reputation for years, Ithaki Estiatorio opened with a Mykonos-bright dining room, a wood-fired kitchen, and executive chef Konstantinos Ntalianis — a MasterChef Greece alum who relocated from Greece specifically for the project. The menu covers the Greektown comfort canon: flaming saganaki, pastitsio, pork souvlakia. But it builds outward from there, with whole fish flown weekly from Greece and Spain, branzino and lobster sold by the pound, and a Greek wine and spirits program the team describes as the most extensive in the city.
Ithaki earns its final position on this list not as a consolation but as a genuine recommendation: it is the kind of restaurant that can anchor a neighborhood, and Greektown has needed one. The room is large and lively, the kitchen has real ambition, and the Greek wine list alone justifies the trip down Halsted.
- Whole wood-fired branzino
- Flaming saganaki
- Greek wine pairing
