One of the first things you notice when walking into Greko in East Nashville is the slew of whole chickens slowly roasting, rotisserie-style, over the open fire. The sight and smell literally make your mouth water, so it’s hard not to order a quarter or a half when standing at the register.
Greko Greek Street Food opened in East Nashville in 2017 and is the brainchild of first cousins Bill and Tony Darsinos. The menu highlights their beloved grandmother Yia-Yia’s recipes alongside cooking techniques perfected by the many food carts dotting the streets of their village of Nemea. They take great care in honoring the culinary customs of their homeland by sourcing local produce, attentively tending to live-fire cooked meats and seafood, grilling hand-formed pitas to order. They import olive oil and wines directly from our home village of Nemea, and our beer list always includes a Greek option in addition to local and domestic brews – which go hand-in-hand with classic dishes like octopus souvlaki, lamb pita, and rotisserie chicken.
GReKo is very much a family affair, following 40+ years of hospitality experience owning and operating restaurants across Middle Tennessee. Soon after our fathers Angelo Darsinos and Spiro Darsinos emigrated to the US from Nemea, they found their way to Nashville and opened Gondola Pizza, the first of many restaurants in the 1970s. GReKo is the collective vision of the next generation of the family, and a long dreamed of sharing the authentic flavors of Greece in Nashville, the Athens of the South.
