Legendary chef and restaurateur Costas Spiliadis inside the new Estiatorio Milos Toronto.doublespace photography/Supplied
The first thing I see upon entering Estiatorio Milos in Toronto is Costas Spiliadis, the 78-year-old owner and restaurateur, rolling ancient clay urns, once used to store olive oil and wine, across the white Pentelikon marble floor.
The scene, and the room, transport me from all-business Bay Street to a sunset stroll in Crete.
Ushering diners into this airy take on casual luxury, featuring a two-storey atrium and the building’s original heritage-designated facade, has been a decades-long process for Spiliadis. In 1979, he opened Milos, a one-room taverna on Montreal’s Park Avenue, which has since doubled in size while becoming one of the city’s most beloved restaurants and one of North America’s most influential.
Forty-five years ago, Spiliadis seemed like an unlikely candidate to open a restaurant: He had no background in business, restaurants or even cooking. Nevertheless, he found a small space on Park Avenue, a strip where many immigrant groups used to land, and he set to work in the kitchen – while in constant contact with his mother back home, for her recipes.
“He’s a man on a mission,” Lesley Chesterman, the former restaurant critic for the Montreal Gazette, said. “He’s built an impressive empire and really put Greek cuisine on the map. He’s probably one of the most – if not the most – successful restaurateurs in the world today.”
Estiatorio Milos is still family-owned and run, with locations in Montreal, New York, Miami, London, Athens, Dubai, Los Cabos, Miami, Singapore and, now, its twelfth location, in Toronto. (Outposts in Los Angeles and Palm Beach are planned for the coming year).
The grand two-storey Atrium Dining Room at Estiatorio Milos Toronto includes an impressive heritage-designated façade.doublespace photography/Supplied
With his antiquities now in place, Spiliadis, with a shock of dark hair and in a trim blue suit, greets me and slings his jacket over a plush banquette. He’s expressive. His eyes glint when he talks about the 10 tons of Greek fleur de sel he sources from the wind-swept island of Kythira. “For me it’s a magical ingredient.” He knows the 12 women who hand-harvest it from the island’s rocky salt pans.
He slaps the table (and apologizes when I jump) when conveying his love for the Milos Special, a mainstay appetizer of paper-thin zucchini and eggplant slices fried to a crunch and served with tzatziki. (If you visit a Milos and wonder what that towering dish is on every table, it’s this.)
But his brow furrows when he points to the rusty chains fixed above the uncut slabs of ecru-hued marble that serve as art on the plaster walls. The chains aren’t right, he says. Though they ooze a lovely, rusty patina to my eye, apparently, they aren’t nearly hefty enough to haul slabs of marble from a deep Greek quarry. And above all else, Spiliadis is about authenticity.
The generous offerings of the Varvakios central market in Athens have inspired most of his restaurants, with large swaths of each dining room transformed into a similar market where diners can choose ingredients for their meals. Here too, the finest marble from Mount Pentelicus is on display, the same stone seen at ancient Greek sites such as the Acropolis.
Spiliadis had no background in business, restaurants or even cooking before he began building his empire 45 years ago.Andrew Bui/Supplied
The market also features a glass chamber with large sacks of cheesecloth on hooks, dripping whey. “We want to make sure people see what real Greek yogurt is,” he says. “It’s a very natural product and its thickness is achieved not through chemicals or additives but through the simple method of draining.” (Tip: Get it for dessert topped with thyme honey from Kythira).
Together we survey the market’s bounty of fruits and vegetables. There are also all kinds of legumes, from lentils to chickpeas. He promises the tomatoes, brought in from warmer climes when necessary, will always be this red and juicy, and I haven’t seen such a colourful grouping of fish since that time I went snorkelling in Thailand’s Koh Phi Phi.
You are meant to go up and choose your fish and seafood, sourced from countries including Greece, Spain and Portugal along with Canada’s East and West coasts and the Carolinas, then a chef will guide you through a variety of preparation options, he explains.
The Toronto menu also includes a mezze bar menu, family-style dining options – such as oven-roasted bone-in Ontario leg of lamb for the table – and dozens of Greek cheeses available for sampling, “purely for educational purposes,” he says.
In his early years in Montreal, while working at Radio Centre-Ville (where he led the Greek programming for five years), Spilidadis realized he was missing home, especially the food of home. While he saw Greek food all around him, it didn’t live up to the memories of his mother’s cooking. “My god,” he thought. “We are losing an important component of our material culture. Our cuisine is being lost!”
A variety of available fresh Mediterranean fish is on display in Estiatorio Milos’ iconic market, where guests are escorted to make selections prior to ordering.doublespace photography/Supplied
He set out to change this and his target was global capitals. “It’s a mission,” he says. “Especially in key markets, where opinions are formed. I want to reconstitute the idea of Greek food and Greek dining. I choose these places on that basis.”
In Toronto, the 225-seat space is outfitted with a mix of banquettes and contemporary oak-framed chairs softened with chenille. Dozens of custom pendant lights, inspired by traditional Greek fishermen’s lamps, hang like fat olives from the ceiling. The Bay Street-facing bar features wide-plank solid oak floors, a 65-foot-long Pentelikon marble bar and an Aegean blue ceiling reminiscent of the domed roofs of Santorini.
When we sit down to chat at a four-top draped in linens as thick as his yogurt, Spilidadis reiterates that growing up around the family table in Patras, a coastal city in western Greece, and eating his mother’s food has informed everything he’s done since leaving her kitchen for university overseas. Eventually he finished his studies in Montreal, laid roots, started a family – and launched a restaurant empire.
“From Montreal I learned about the importance of my guests and my relationship to them,” he says. “I learned hospitality, the idea of simple food done properly, and I learned how important it is to start with the right ingredients.”
For instance, when starting out, he couldn’t find the beautiful, live fish his mother used to serve, so he drove back and forth to the Fulton Fish Market in New York several times a week. “I was the first restaurateur that did direct business with them,” he says. “I told them I want the best. I will pay you before the fish even arrive and I will never ask how much it costs.” It started a relationship with the market that endures.
As his first guests are about to lay eyes on this soaring new space, there’s a nervous energy about him. “It is a business,” he explains. “But it’s also a project of self-realization. I’m building myself, my being, based on memories. It’s relevant to me as a person.”
In other words, it can’t be pretentious or fake. “These chains,” he says, again waving an angry finger at the wall behind us. “They don’t match my authentic memory. So, we will replace them.”
One in a regular series of stories. To read more, visit our Inspired Dining section.
Editor’s note: A previous version of this article incorrectly located Estiatorio Milos on Park Street. It is on Park Avenue. This version has been updated.