Greek-Chicago gyros
Photo: Antonio Fajardo i López · CC BY-SA 3.0

History

Greek immigrants arrived in Chicago in volume in the 1900s, settling around Halsted and Harrison on the Near West Side, the Greektown of legend. In 1973 the Apostolou brothers and the Garlanis family at Parkview Restaurant in Skokie began turning out the cone-shaped, vertically-roasted gyros loaf of beef and lamb, reportedly America's first commercial frozen gyros cone. Kronos Foods, founded the same year in Chicago, scaled it nationally. The Halsted Street strip (Greek Islands and Artopolis) has been Greektown's food row since the original district was bulldozed for the UIC campus in 1965.

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Common allergens: Gluten, Dairy

Make it at home

Yield 4Hands-on 25 minTotal 40 minDifficulty Easy

Ingredients

  • 400g pre-sliced gyros meat (beef-and-lamb cone)
  • 4 thick pita breads
  • 2 tomatoes, sliced
  • 1 small red onion, finely sliced
  • 200ml thick Greek yoghurt
  • 1/2 cucumber, grated, drained
  • 2 cloves garlic, grated
  • 1 tablespoon olive oil
  • 1 teaspoon dried mint
  • 1 teaspoon fine salt
  • 1 tablespoon white wine vinegar
  • 500g floury potatoes for fries
  • Neutral oil for frying

Method

  1. Make the tzatziki: stir yoghurt, drained cucumber, garlic, olive oil, mint, salt and vinegar. Chill 30 minutes.
  2. Cut the potatoes into 8mm sticks, soak in cold water 15 minutes, drain, dry.
  3. Heat the frying oil to 165C (325F). Fry the chips 6 minutes pale, drain. Bring oil to 190C (375F), fry again 3 minutes until gold. Salt.
  4. Crisp the gyros meat in a hot dry pan 3 minutes, turning, until the edges are dark and the centre is hot.
  5. Warm the pitas in a dry pan 30 seconds each side. Build: tzatziki on the pita, then meat, tomato, onion, fold and wrap in foil at the bottom.
  6. Serve immediately with the fries alongside.

Tip from the editors. Buy the meat pre-sliced from a Greek butcher. The home cone is the wrong recipe for one weeknight dinner.

Where to eat greek-chicago gyros

Greek-Chicago gyros in Chicago

Greek Islands ★ 4.0

$$ GreekGreektown

Greek Islands in Chicago is the Greektown standard on South Halsted since 1971, with the flaming saganaki tableside-presentation that the neighbourhood made.

OrderSaganaki (Opa!), lamb on the spit, gyros plate to share.

TipSunday lunch with the family is the room's natural use. Book a long table and a bottle of Boutari.

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