Going Greek in Greenpoint
Posted by estiator at 11 March, at 18 : 42 PM Print
COVER STORY
General Manager Michael Kasimis, co-owner Christos Gourmos, Executive Chef Moshe Grundman and co-owner Spiro Menegatos.
Going Greek in Greenpoint With Nerina, the cofounder of NYC’s acclaimed Nerai brings small plates and an all-Greek wine list to Brooklyn.
By Michael Kaminer
After the smash success of Nerai, his Manhattan fine-dining destination restaurant, Spiro Menegatos is thinking small. In fact, small plates dominate the menu at Nerina, the chic, airy eatery Menegatos opened last month across the East River in Brooklyn.
“I call it our Ozempic menu,” says Menegatos, laughing, as his toddler son, George, yelps joyfully—in English and Greek—in the background. “People are looking for smaller plates. The big, old chicken parms and bowls of pasta are out of style now. People want to maintain their figures, eat healthy, and stay fit.”
Nerina’s mezze-style menu, developed by longtime Nerai executive chef Moshe Grundman, “also means that guests can try more dishes at the table, not eat half a dish and throw the rest away,” Menegatos says. “We’re recommending three dishes per person on the table, and at our pre-opening friends-and-family meals, the feedback was incredible.”
Greenpoint, the hip Brooklyn neighborhood where Nerina is located, “is the mecca of new restaurants,” Menegatos says. “There’s so much fun stuff going on. It also appealed to us because our current Manhattan landlord is involved in some of the many projects going up in the area.” Greenpoint Landing, where the restaurant is housed, is a multibuilding, mixed-use development on the formerly industrial waterfront in Brooklyn.
Nerina features 60 seats in its airy dining room, 20 seats at the bar, 15 lounge seats, and 80 more seats outside. “This location allows us to have a 1,500-square-foot outdoor space,” Menegatos says. “It’s glass-enclosed, and we hope to use it nine months out of the year.”
The restaurant is open for dinner, with brunch to follow and lunch “eventually,” says Menegatos. The menu skews traditional, with the fresh, zesty flourishes that have become Chef Grundman’s signature. Think marinated olives with orange zest and oregano, grilled halloumi with fig balsamic reduction, tuna tartare with potato kataifi and tarama foam, striped bass crudo with blood orange and finger lime, and gigantes with ouzo-honey-glazed pork belly.
A tightly edited selection of larger plates includes duck leg stifado agnolotti with onion soubise and crispy shallots, lemon potato gnocchi with kefalograviera, and scallops with petimezi glaze and sunchoke purée. To keep with Nerina’s more casual experience, Menegatos and his team kept the prices of most dishes below $20, or in the low $20s, he says.
For Nerina’s all-Greek wine list—a point of pride for Menegatos—the restaurateur relied on Nerai’s longtime wine director, Grevena native Dimitrios Karagiannis. “We have an award-winning wine list at Nerai, which does not solely focus on Greek wines, and initially, we thought we would take the same direction with Nerina,” Menegatos says. “But we realized we could offer people an experience. If you usually have a California cab, we can steer them toward a Greek wine, and it might be their first taste of an amazing Assyrtiko from Santorini. Nerina’s wine list is one of the things I’m most excited about, along with the food.”
The wine roster also emphasizes organic and biodynamic wines, “highlighting Greece’s dedication to natural winemaking and environmentally friendly practices,” according to a press release. “Each bottle reflects the diversity of the country’s terroirs, bringing forward both traditional and lesser-known Greek varietals that perfectly complement the restaurant’s authentic flavors.” Selections include a Lyrarakis Dafni from Crete, Petrakopoulos Zakynthino from Kefalonia, and Limniona Zafeirakis from Thessaly, among many others.
Cocktails, likewise, have Greek accents, like the Marathos, with Stray Dog gin, celery and fennel syrup, lime, and egg white; Persephone, made with St. Germain, Cointreau, Albet i Noya Brut, and pomegranate juice; and the Loukoumi, with rose-infused Cazcabel tequila, Italicus, rose syrup, and lime. “It evokes the loukoumi rosebud sweets,” Menegatos says.
If Menegatos’ name rings a bell for Estiator readers, it’s not just because we covered Nerai’s genius pandemic pivot in 2020, when it hosted three restaurants in its Midtown space to bolster business through COVID. A decade ago, Estiator also profiled Menegatos’ late father, Asos native George Menegatos, who built New Yorker Bagels into a global powerhouse. “In Manhattan alone, over 7,000 customers and 95% of all pushcarts sell New Yorker Bagels,” George Menegatos told Estiator at the time. George’s wife and Spiro’s mother, Mary, still owns 50% of New Yorker Bagels.
“When I started in this business, my father told me, ‘You’re crazy to get into restaurants,’” Menegatos says, laughing.
Nerai was the younger Menegatos’ first foray into food; he had been a Wall Street trader, and Nerai started as a real estate investment: “But real estate got beaten up by 2013, so we decided to open a restaurant.” Since its debut, Nerai has consistently earned raves from reviewers and customers; the restaurant emerged from the treacherous COVID years even stronger and more popular.
Menegatos partly credits Grundman, his executive chef, for that success. Since joining Nerai in 2017, Grundman has brought “structure and meticulousness,” Menegatos says. “He makes sure everything is the way it’s supposed to be, all the time. He’s a master chef, a drill sergeant, and a leader. He teaches people.”
Like Nerai, everything at Nerina is made in-house, Menegatos says, “including our sourdough bread, gelato, and our own sorbets. That’s one thing that differentiates a quality restaurant. You’re delivering things people can’t do at home. We really put the time and effort into the things we’re doing.”
Nerina’s dining room was designed by Christian Kotzamanis, whose acclaimed New York studio, CKMS, has also designed hotels, upscale residential buildings, and offices. “We went for the feeling of Greece without having to look at the Parthenon,” Menegatos says. “Christian made choices like stucco on the walls and a bar top that reminds you of the kind of Greek hotel lobbies I saw when I was a kid in the 1970s. He took features like the ugly green marble and mahogany wood and made them look incredible.” There is also a (fake) ten-foot olive tree in the middle of the dining room and a (real) olive tree near one of the windows. “The real ones are tough to keep,” Menegatos says.
Built to spec, Nerina’s kitchen was custom-designed by food-service consultants Jacobs Doland Beer, whose clients have included Manhattan’s Eleven Madison Park, Vanderbilt Market, and Legacy Records. “The kitchen was designed especially for our menu and to put out the menu that we need for all of those seats,” Menegatos says.
And what would Menegatos, who lives in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, tell his own son about the restaurant business?
“I think if it’s done right, it’s a good business—but much more difficult than it looks.”
