4 Kilmarnock St, Boston, MA 02215. Phone: 617.266.0001 (Also located in Cambridge, MA)
Worth visiting in a 1 mile radius.
If someone took Chipotle and turned it Greek, you would get Saloniki. It’s located near Fenway Park in Boston, and has an attractive, clean interior with different patterns of light blue and white, the colors of the Greek flag. As with Chipotle, patrons walk up to the counter and order one of the items on the menu, but it is customizable as the employees are making your dish at the counter right in front of the patrons.
When I walked in, I was greeted by a worker pressing the pita fresh using a fancy machine. The pita here is excellent and it’s fantastic that they press fresh pita. After all, pita bread is the basis of many dishes here.
Saloniki’s menu consists of a few combinations of ingredients (usually meat, vegetables, and sauce, although there are some vegetarian/vegan options) that can be served either as a pita sandwich or a plate, on top of brown rice. The salads on the menu are all interesting twists on Greek salad, such as one with asparagus and fennel added to the mix. The few dessert options include Greek yogurt with your choice of a sweet topping such as jam or honey, and loukoumades, which are balls of fried dough served with honey or Nutella.
My “George” pita (Spicy lamb meatballs, charred eggplant, garlic yogurt, secret sauce, greens, tomato, onion, Greek fries, spicy slaw, and fresh herbs) was tasty, but could definitely be improved upon. I was a little dubious of “Greek fries” being in my pita, having no idea what they were, but they just turned out to be French fries cut in the cross section of the potato. They were not too greasy and had rosemary on top of them, so that was a pleasant surprise. Everything in this dish was fresh, especially the pita, as I mentioned earlier. However, this dish had quite a few downsides. First, the wrap was stuffed to the brim with a lot of ingredients, as is every gyro here. It was a little hard to tell which was which, and there were many combatting flavors of ingredients that tasted odd together. Also, the sauce was good, but it was used in copious amounts on the pita, smothering the taste of other ingredients.
The “Niko” plate (similar ingredients but substitute grilled chicken for lamb meatballs) was fresh just like the George, and the ingredients tasted good with the bed of brown rice they were served on. Plus, it came with a side of pita, so you don’t have to miss out on it by ordering a plate.
Prices at Saloniki are very reasonable: $8-$9 for a pita, $9-$10 for a plate, and salads at $6-$9. Saloniki’s food isn’t anything amazing, but the tasty and quick meals make for a decent lunch stop.
Bluebell Reviews 