Lunch at Taverna Kyclades

A late fall birthday lunch for my uncle Cliff brought us to Taverna Kyclades, a restaurant in Astoria, Queens serving some of the most authentic Greek seafood around.

 

Astoria, the seemingly quiet neighborhood just over the east river from the Upper West Side of Manhattan, is actually a bustling hub of restaurants and shops, a melting pot of cultures. A short stroll down Ditmars Boulevard or Steinway Street, some of the most popular main drags in the neighborhood, will prove to you exactly how ethnically diverse the area really is. Italian and Greek restaurants butt right up against Mexican and Thai cuisine. Across the street from a traditional Turkish deli and you’ll find yourself at a classic New York bodega or a Pakistani store. This cultural melting pot really is one of the things I love most about living in Queens, hailed as one of the diverse places on Earth.

 

But as diverse as Astoria may be, it has long been most known for it’s authentic Greek and Mediterranean cuisine. And Taverna Kyclades is as authentic as it gets. This Ditmars Boulevard staple is best known for it’s ample menu full of the freshest seafood around, served either grilled or fried. And their long list of appetizers and huge portions made it the perfect spot for a family lunch, since my family is all about ordering a bounty of dishes and sharing.

 

 

We started our meal with fried calamari, which may seem like the kind of dish you can get at any good Italian restaurant or even pizza joint. But Taverna Kylclades does it perfectly with just the right amount of breading and fry, keeping those salty rings perfectly tender and not too greasy. Seafood is followed by seafood at Taverna Kyclades, so up next was grilled octopus – one of the best I’ve ever had – and fried anchovies, ordered especially at my request. I know some of you are curling your noses right now at the thought of anchovies, but these are different. They’re fresh, so they don’t have that concentrated fishy flavor, but they’re still flaky and salty. And they’re so tiny that you eat the fish whole, bones and all. And just like the calamari, the fry on them is perfect and they’re as easy to pop into your mouth and as crunchy as potato chips.

 

 

 

While seafood is their specialty, Taverna Kyclades does every dish on their menu just as well as their seafood. It would admittedly be pretty hard to mess up fried cheese, but this this Greek specialty known as saganaki is done perfectly here. The skordalia, a creamy potato dip, is just the right amount of tangy garlic and smooth, earthy potato. And just to lighten things up a bit and round out the meal, a traditional Greek salad was required, and of course just as good as everything else on the menu. The next time you are in search of a traditional Greek meal, or in the mood for some of the freshest seafood you can get, a trip to Taverna Kyclades is a must.