‘TELL that Greek I’ll sever his head off,” John Gotti famously warned a business partner. Decapitation isn’t the half of it for the sea creatures bound for sale at Estiatorio Milos; not even Aeschylus could have foretold so pitiful an end.
Consider your average pageot, one of the squillion varieties of snapper that ply the pellucid waters of the Aegean. A specimen is yanked out of the peaceful deep by a line from a small boat. Not 24 hours later, it’s sold commodity-style by weight, fileted, and gulped down Altoids-freshened cosmopolite gullets in the ground floor of a Midtown Manhattan office tower.
At Milos, you feel intimate with the Greek seas. On days when they’re out of certain dishes, you can smell the squall that kept the boats in port.
It isn’t just our charming waitress who names the peninsula where she grew up, and cheerfully relates how the staff are from “many different parts of Greece, and also America.” Milos is a comfortable, spacious, high-ceiling room with exposed concrete and fat ceiling pipes that looks like SoHo. But like abstract art, the atmosphere lets you put your own spin on it.
At lunch, my friend sees “an Ace bandage” in the gauzy wall hangings. But to someone who has never been to Greece, the stucco walls, the billowy curtains evoke the Aegean of my imagination – of open sky, sails and whitewashed villages – more expressively than cliched Parthenon murals.
On a packed weeknight, Milos buzzes with muted Midtown energy. At the bar, the owner of the Hamptons’ Nick & Tony’s and his partner discuss plans to install a Tuscan farmhouse restaurant in ABC Carpet & Home. “Give me mountains and clear sky, and I’m happy,” exults the woman at the next table as her companions dip wonderful warm bread in Milos’s unique oregano-kissed olive oil. It’s a portent of the meal to come.
Forget the overcooked-to-oblivion seafood cliches of New York Greek restaurants, those in Astoria included. At Milos, the act to catch is the selection of whole fresh fish, of which a few are offered at lunch and a dozen at dinner.
The fish, all varieties rarely seen in these parts, are fileted in the kitchen and arrive on our plates fanned out, brushed in olive oil and lemon juice. Unembellished by sauces, they taste as if they’ve just come out of the water.
At lunch, loup de mer is sweet. At dinner, dorado is meaty and rich, while pageot is lighter and flakier. Each arrives properly warm (as is the custom in Greece), not hot; thoroughly cooked but uniformly moist throughout. Each is an excursion to that distant sea.
Oddly, although we are paying for whole fish, we recall no heads on our plates. “Maybe they were pinheads,” my companion speculates. The Milos people explain that unless diners ask to keep them, the server will whisk them away, especially if the dishes are served individually rather than family-style. So speak up.
And be warned: Milos is far less expensive at lunch than at dinner, when whole fish are sold by weight. I’ve got some splainin’ to do to the folks at News Corp., The Post’s parent, who might wonder about a $40-plus charge for a single piece of Greek fish.
See, the royal dorado is $32 a pound. (Others range from $25-$34 a pound). Milos sells only the whole piscene, which often weighs more than a pound. Ours comes to 1.3 pounds, for $41.60. So if you go for dinner, it’s a good idea to have the backing of a major media conglomerate.
Goat’s milk yogurt with thyme honey is a sublime dessert – and a steal at $7.50. Milos runs smoothly day and night, and the warm and winning staff make everyone feel at home. What a pleasure that a fine restaurant can be as civilized as it is exotic.
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ESTIATORIO MILOS 125 W. 55TH ST. (212) 245-7400