Emblazoned with an oversize blue and white flag and a welcome sign in Greek letters, the new restaurant Delfos, although tiny (four tables), is not hard to spot. It peeks out from a plain facade on Pino Suarez midway between Guadalajara’s downtown cathedral and Mercado Alcalde to the north.
“We opened a month ago,” says owner Panayotis Bolosis in good Spanish. Bolosis, a young man born in a town in northern Greece, came to Mexico with his Mexican mother eight years ago, so he has had time to learn Spanish (and get married and have two daughters).
Bolosis’ mother, Maria Guadalupe Contreras, does a lot of the cooking. From the small kitchen at Delfos, and probably from her home kitchen half a block away, she produces a full spectrum of Greek dinners, such as musaka, suflaki, gyros, tiropita, spanakopita and lahanika sxaras, most accompanied by rice pilaf or oven-browned potatoes and a beautiful salad, along with typical side dishes and desserts such as baklaba and a nut-and-cinnamon cake, karidopita. (Some spellings were unlike those in U.S. Greek restaurants, but considering the names are normally written in the Greek writing system and are being transliterated into Spanish, this is to be expected.)
Greece and Mexico, with their colors, sunny climates and pre-eminence of an ancient culture, seem culturally similar, at least on the surface, and Bolosis says that Mexicans take to Greek food.“Our most popular dish is musaka,” he noted, pointing to the menu where it is listed as the specialty of the house. Indeed, with layers of potatoes, zucchini, eggplant and meat topped by firm and tasty bechamel, the musaka at Delfos ranked at the top of the tasty list.
But the highlight of lunch, remarkably, was the yogurt. Greece is more or less at ground zero of yogurt-making. In many households there, yogurt is made daily on the back of the stove. At Delfos this tradition is in force and so its yogurt, served as tzaziki, was wonderful — creamy and mild, rather than tart.
“You won’t find this in all Guadalajara and maybe not in all Mexico,” Bolosis crowed. “They have jocoque here, but it is salty.”
Breakfast is served at Delfos starting at 8 a.m. The Greek specialties on this menu are omelets cooked in olive oil and Greek coffee, served in small cups like espresso, but “with a flavor differ ent flavor,” Bolosis said. However, in a nod to Guadalajara, most of the breakfast dishes come with frijoles and chilaquiles (invented right in this city, it is said).
“We use garlic for flavor,” Bolosis went on, “and almost never chile, unless a customer wants it.”
“We make some vegetarian dishes,” he emphasized. Lahanika sxaras, made with a variety of vegetables and goat cheese, is one of them, along with tiropita (cheese and pastry pie) and spanakopita (spinach pie).
As for beverages, Delfos still has no beer or wine, but plans to in the near future. “We’re just getting started,” Bolosis said.
Delfos, Pino Suarez 275-A between Garibaldi and Reforma in downtown Guadalajara. Open daily 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. (33) 1593-2135. Some English spoken.