Couple’s Greek cooking returns

Greek traditions run strong in the Tsakarestos family. So strong, in fact, that it brought Dino and Fotini Tsakarestos out of retirement and back into the limelight of business ownership with the opening of Santorini’s Authentic Greek Cuisine in Coeur d’Alene.

Located across from Kootenai County Fairgrounds on Government Way, the restaurant, which serves lunch, dinner and pastries made from scratch, is an ode to all the things the couple has learned in their 30 years of owning and operating eateries. The duo, who’ve been married for almost 35 years and emigrated from Greece in the 1970s, had formerly operated businesses in Missoula in the ’80s and ’90s, and in Coeur d’Alene until a few years ago.

That’s when the couple attempted to retire, with only moderate success.

“In 2007 we tried to retire because we said, after so many years, we can’t do it anymore,” Fotini Tsakarestos offered while taking a break from cooking in the kitchen of their new restaurant. “We had to be doing something.”

That something is providing a Mediterranean gastronomic experience steeped in tradition. Wherever the Tsakarestos family sets up shop, including a Santorini’s (named after the small Greek island of Santorini) in downtown Spokane run by two of their three children, the basis of their restaurants remains the same: a passion to create authentic Greek recipes that span the Mediterranean country’s culinary spectrum, ranging from gyros to hummus to baklava to baba ghanouj. The time-honored formulas were handed down from generation to generation in Fotini Tsakarestos’ family in her childhood home on Crete, the largest of the Greek islands.

Cooking in her household growing up, Tsakarestos said she learned by helping her mother and grandmother in the kitchen. “It was my passion; I loved to cook and I like to try different recipes,” she said.

So just a few months after the couple’s restaurateur retreat two years ago, they decided to open another Greek eatery. After helping their sons establish the restaurant in Spokane, they began the process of finding a location, prepping the place and fine-tuning the menu. In early November, the more than 40-person-capacity eatery and its seven employees welcomed their first customers as well as many former regulars.

“I’ve always loved Coeur d’Alene,” Tsakarestos said. “And I’ve always loved cooking for people, and to see (returning customers) smile again. I missed the people; I missed the feel of a restaurant.”

The couple has perfected their two-person approach in the kitchen through the years, with Dino doing most of the prep work and Fotini doing a lot of the cooking. Some of the most popular menu items include baklava, rice pudding and a butter-roasted almond cookie called kourabiedes, all made fresh every day, while the always-in-demand lunch favorites consist of falafel, dolmades and gyros, with the restaurant serving 20 to 30 pounds of the rotisserie-style lamb every day.

“Our food is good and fresh,” Tsakarestos said. “Everything is made from scratch.”

Over a lunch of hummus and baba ghanouj on a recent afternoon, Angelo Brunson, owner and chef of Angelo’s in midtown, offered his assessment of Santorini’s.

“It’s great,” he said, as the plate of roasted eggplant, fresh garlic, tahini, Greek olive oil and spices slowly disappeared from the table. “It’s just really fresh. It’s simple and I like it.”