Kokkari Estiatorio

Went for my birthday dinner. I loved this place the first time I went for lunch with a friend and we had shared several appetizers. This time the story was different. S
ervice was mechanical (like a chain) and food was sub par. One of our mains (the lamb skewer) was just horrible quality. I also had food poison the next day (could be the octopus I ate here). I had eaten out that day at lunch too so am not entirely sure which one did it. All in all it was a bad experience.

My boyfriend surprised me on Saturday and took me out to dinner. This was the first time either of us dined at Kokkari. We had a great experience from start to finish.
When we first walked in, the place was packed and we didn’t have a reservation. The host and hostess informed us that they would let us know in 15 minutes if they would have a table for us. We walked over to the bar, which was also full, and started looking

Have been many times and it is always a great dining experience. If anything this place gets better over time.
Had an exceptional server (Jeff) who took such good care of us and is also very knowledgeable about the wines.
Such a pleasant evening with great food /​wine !

This is my favorite medditerenean food place. Its a little fancy and pricy but they make you feel special.
Their appetizers are really good. Really nice atmosphere and very professional staff.

Three of us ate here last night. The meal, the service, the atmosphere are perfect. The restaurant was busy and we were never waiting or ignored, our server was Brook and his service was terrific. We were in the large main dining room and the place was alive, couples, families, large groups all eating, drinking, and having a wonderful Saturday night celebration.
We feel Kenny Frangadakis has the best restaurant in San Francisco

Location: walking distance of montgomery bart, valet available, street parking available (if you drive around a bit)
Service: our server was nice but towards the end of the meal he kind of spaced out and disappeared. I saw him walking around but he kept skipping our table even though we were clearly waiting for the dessert menu. what really appalled me is that I saw the manager (I’m assuming) walk around to each table to greet everybody, but he took one glance at us (dressed nice but clearly in our young 20’s) and walked right past us. things like this irritate me because it was a celebratory dinner and we were willing to go all out for the dinner.
Food:
–zucchini cakes: reeeeally delicious! I love the sauce that goes with it.
–grilled sea bass: dry and even though they say they debone it, there were still so many bones
–chicken: probably not the best thing to get here (only got it since I don’t like lamb or fish). the thigh/​drumstick pieces were really juicy and great but the breast was so so dry it was difficult to get down. I asked for some sort of broth to maybe help me eat it, but he brought me oily salad dressing instead.
–baklava: ice cream was good, baklava wasn’t that good… BUT I took one piece home and ate it today and it was even better the next day!
if I ever come back I’ll probably just order a few of the small plates for myself since I think they’re more of a star than the mains were. warning: if you don’t dress nice then they will judge you. I was wearing business clothes and still wasn’t enough.

Truly without exaggeration, this meal was one of the best I’ve had in over year — and that’s including my meal last week at Statebird Provisions. Our friendly waiter came by and offered us menu assistance and lots of good advice. Our table of 6 ordered zucchini cake appetizers, stuffed calamari, and Greek salads to start. The zucchini cakes were warm and tasty — beautifully complemented by the tzatziki, which was thick and no doubt made-​in-​house. The calamari was grilled, and stuffed with feta, fennel, orange and black olives. Never had I tasted calamari like this before — tender & lemony — and it was an immediate hit for the entire table. (Don’t forget their bread to mop up both the tzatziki and calamari sauce!). Lastly, the Greek salad was fresh, with tons of feta chunks to share. So far I think it is fair to say that we were off to a good start.
As for the mains: I had been told that their lamb chops were the best in the city. And what I received did not disappoint me. Possibly the best lamb I’ve tasted in my life (and my mom makes a mean chop), the meat was cooked perfectly, and the spices on the chops worked together to create the most exquisite mouthful possible. Accompanied with ‘Kokkari potatoes’ the salty, dense potato was a great side. I shared the lamb chops with the special of the day — a type of lamb stew that came with porcini, orzo, and veggies. Although quite tasty, and the supposed favorite of many waiters, the stew seemed to pale in comparison to the chops. Although it did make a great leftover dish.* (to be reheated the next morn with eggs)
A close second to the chops was a whole fish — line caught that very day just a few miles away from the restaurant itself. The whole fish was served grilled, simply with lemon, sea salt, and olive oil. Although still second to the chops in my opinion, the fish was excellent quality and well worth a sample.

This place is bomb!
Definitely get:
The zucchini cakes &
Lamb riblets for appetizers
The chicken &
the lamb chops for dinner
Lemon filo with crème fresh ice cream for dessert. You best might as well get two of these.
Or three.
Our group ordered way more than this but I wanted to make this easy for you and let you know what you definitely need to get.
Enjoy!!!

My date was able to make a same day dinner reservation on a weekday and I was excited to finally check out Kokkari. It was only 6pm when we arrived and the restaurant was almost full.
We ordered Kolokithokeftethes (zucchini cakes) as a starter, Arnisia Paidakia (grilled lamb chops) for my entrée, and lamb rotisserie special for his entrée.
We were so hungry waiting for our food that we munched on the free bread. The zucchini cakes were very delicious but they were tiny for $ 11.75.
I really enjoyed the lamb chops and they were cooked to perfection. I know that my date had food envy because my entrée was much better than his. The lamb rotisserie had too much meat and not enough veggies to balance the meal.
For dessert, we shared an order of baklava. The ice cream was excellent and as expected, the baklava was way too sweet for my taste. We ended up leaving behind half of the dessert.
Overall, I liked the food but the prices are about 20% higher than they should be.

I contemplated some before deciding on my 3-​star review based on a few factors. The overall experience was actually not bad, and food was delicious yes, but I feel that the management could have done MORE to deserve our 4 or 5 star experience.
I brought my bottle of 2012 Duel from Darioush Winery to our dinner, and the wine retails for $ 60 at the winery. Our server is a nice and decent guy, greeted us and explained their Daily Specials, Rotisserie of the Day, so on and so forth. We ordered the wood-​oven roasted prawns as appetizer, which was good. When our entrees were served, however, this was when the accident occurred. One of the servers spilled half of my Darioush bottle not only on the floor, but also spilled some on my BF’s suede leather jacket as well! Obviously I was not happy because I purposely brought THIS bottle to dinner to go with the food, and worse, spilled some on my BF’s suede leather jacket. Is there any coat check at Kokkari, BTW?
The Managing Partner, Paul Kirby, later came over, apologized for the accident, and showed me the wine list and asked us to pick any bottle we liked as a substitution. He looked at my bottle and said, «Oh, so this is Darioush’s second label?» Please do your homework first! Of course this is NOT a second label bottle, Caravan is Darioush’s second label bottle, but still retails for $ 50 these days. After looking at the menu, we have decided on the Nickel & Nickel, Suscol Ranch Merlot, Napa Valley ’13 (which retails for $ 55, I know for a fact; at the restaurant it costs $ 105). He said of course and took away the wine menu.
Five minutes or so later, our server came back with a DIFFERENT bottle, Rosati, Cabernet Sauvignon, Mendocino County ’09 ($ 60 at the restaurant), and said the N&N is all sold out, what a convenient excuse!!! I felt that they pressed the Rosati bottle on us, but I didn’t want to push it further or cause a scene and affect other diners. Apparently, if you asked your guest to pick any bottle from the wine list and the guest happens to know a lot about wine and picks a good bottle, how is it possible that the bottle is so conveniently SOLD OUT? I could have requested the Shafer, Merlot, Napa Valley ’13 (just bought at K&L Wine Merchants for $ 60; $ 110 at Kokkari), but since I also have that bottle at home, hence we decided on Nickel & Nickel’s Merlot instead. Also, I was being FAIR; the bottle I requested is comparable to the retail price I paid for mine. I wouldn’t want to trade anything for my Duel had the server not spilled our wine in the first place. Paul offered for us to take the jacket for dry clean and bring back the receipt, which we are totally going to do so, no doubt.
I guess what I want to say is, if you are all about customer service to deserve the current 4.5 star rating, do not do things «half ass» or just do the mediocre to brush off the customers. I think they probably don’t care too much for the service side after all, given their already stellar reviews from 3,500+ other Unilocalers. However, we felt shortchanged and disrespected in the sense that the bottle we specifically requested was not available and they gave us something half the price of what we requested as a substitution? This is neither acceptable nor excusable. At the very least, they should have brought us another red blend/​Cabernet from Napa Valley, and not from Mendocino. Our dessert, Baklava, was comp’d, so that part was nice.
Overall, I doubt if we’d go back to Kokkari given the hiccup and complications, and I’ve really struggled as to whether I should have given them a 3 or 4 star review. However, came this morning, the «replacement bottle» that they pushed on us didn’t sit well with me, and hence they deserve only a 3-​star review, already generous if you ask me. Check out my previous reviews on Far Niente and Nickel & Nickel; I’ve been to both wineries and do know my Napa Valley wine WELL. Ultimately, I hope Kokkari’s management could take this as a learning experience, because some customers, after all, do TALK about the dining experience, especially when it is less than pleasant. The other three stars are attributed to the delicious entrees, the special date night with my love, the convenience of the location, and some credit to our server for his friendliness.
P. S. Some of my friends read my review and thought my 3-​star rating is overly generous; they say I should give 2 stars instead. I’ll leave this to the Unilocalers to decide. :)

Kokkari always provides the most hospitable experience. Service was very friendly as always.
Trio of dips (tzatziki, cheese, and olive) — with cucumbers, pickled vegetables, olives, dolmas, and pita bread (off menu appetizer)
Moroccan spiced carrots — baked to perfection and spiced just right
Grilled octopus — octopus was not tough as some octopus can be
Moussaka — bechamel is to die for
Fish of the day — a sea bass, grilled whole. Lots of small bones left in the fish, but it was cooked perfectly.
Goat stew with orzo (special of the day) — homey comfort food
Greek coffee — I order it very sweet and it is perfect for me, as it is a rich coffee flavor but also sweet like a dessert. We didn’t even need an actual dessert because we were so full, and the coffee hit the spot. Just be wary of the silt at the bottom of the cup.
Kokkari is definitely one of my favorite restaurants. I always love it there!

4.5 stars
Arrived on a sat evening around 6 pm hoping for bar seating. Lucky us! A couple was just finishing up and leaving. We quickly snagged these seats and had a nice view of the fire pit.
Started with a nice strong vodka soda with lime and grilled artichoke and eggplant on skewer. The veggies came with some yogurt and was delicious. For the main course my bf and I split the whole grilled fish. They had 3 different types of fish that day. The fish was absolutely delicious. It was very simple but the garlic and lemon flavors really complemented the fish. You can request they they debone it. The fish arrives in its entirety with head and all. I was phased at all coming from a Chinese family :)
We weren’t that hungry so sharing the fish worked out but it could easily be one serving. Had a great time and we didn’t feel rushed at all. Would love to come back and try some of their heavier meat options. Expect to spend close to $ 100 per person for a few drinks, appetizer and entrée.

Classy & Romantic. My husband and I enjoyed our dinner here and our waiter was excellent and also funny (I failed to remember his name). He introduced items that were not on the menu to us and we ended up ordering most of it.
Appetizers:
Zucchini cake — similar to crab cakes
Octopus (grilled?) — It was a bit crunchy on the outer, but soft inside. pretty good for those who loves seafood.
Lamb’s tongue — Now this is my favorite appetizer! Very soft and probably because I’ve had cow’s tongue before and really liked it… so I especially like this one too.
Lenthil soup — Veggies, tastes sweet & salty.
Main Courses:
My husband ordered the Goat stew is scrumptious! It comes with Greek rice and the flavor is pretty sweet. I would highly recommend this, you will not be disappointed. I ordered Lamb Shank and it was good, but after tasting the goat stew, I wish I would’ve ordered that instead. Lamb shank was more bland to my taste but the meat is pretty soft.
For dessert, we had this «cake» layer that has a name started with a K (too long to remember). We were in love with this dessert, it’s the best. Sort of reminded me of panna cotta. A must try!
So why 4 stars when I had a great experience?
My husband’s glass of wine had something floating in it and the waiter took it to the bartender to remove it, but told us it was a new glass that he handed us. We just wasn’t favoring the lie.
And at the beginning when we entered the restaurant, we told the host & hostess that we had a reservation. The man host asked for our last name, he was having a hard time with the spelling and looked annoyed with a slight attitude toward me then turned it over to the hostess.
For the price we paid for our meals and the classy /​fancy presentation that the restaurant tries to deliver to the customers, little things like should be examined by the upper management. It would have been beyond perfection.

I came here for a birthday. I called a month before to make a reservation. My reservation was 8:15 but we arrived at 7:40. They gave us a table soon.
The service was really good. The server explained is today’s menu well. He is knowledgeable.
What we ate were
1. Octopus. Sooo soft and tasty. How did it make them so soft?! Massaging?
2. Goat stew. Goat, artichoke, other veggies w many spices. So many flavored and I can enjoy different taste every spoons.
3. Lamb chop. The best lamb chop ever. Sooo tender and tasty. We ordered as
Medium rare but that was good choice. Medium could be good too.
4. Custard and ice cream as dessert. The custard was not too sweet and the best.
We all shared the dishes but we were really full and got half of stew back to home.
I wanna come here and try another dishes too.

I had a annual year end lunch from my company here
During lunch time, it’s crowded. The price is a little bit high but I didn’t pay for it so it’s ok.
Food is ok. However I gave them 4 stars since nothing to complain and they are in good location

Everything about Kokkari impressed me. Service, ambience, and most of the all… the food. In my opinion, there is nothing better than high class food served in a casual and lively atmosphere. This is exactly what you get here. The food is rustic and just so delicious.
There are two must order dishes when you’re here… The grilled octopus appetizer and the grilled lamb chop entrée. Game over!

As I San Franciscan, Kokkari should be marked off my list a long time ago but probably because I’m not the biggest fan of Greek food and lamb. TRUST ME, after you give Kakkari a try, you will fall in love. Simply amazing!
Kokkari was the perfect place to take my friend somewhere nice for her birthday. I booked the reservation a month ahead to get the time slot I wanted. Reservations are hard to get for the best time frames. The restaurant gives you a coozy, fine dining touch. Décor has warmth with high ceilings. Open kitchen with a fireplace, cooking up chicken, etc. The restaurant is huge and they are fully booked every night. Wow! The bar area is first come first serve. Grab a drink and you might get a seat.
Appetizers:**Kalamari-grilled calamari stuffed with feta. It’s so freaken good. The calamari was cooked perfect with the feta, explosion of flavors.
**Arnisia Plevrakia — grilled lamb riblets — Super tasty, did not have that strong taste you get from low quality lamb.
**Pantzaria-​roasted beets with Greek yogurt & pistachio — YUM. The blend of the yogurt and beets was delicious. Not cheese so its okay to eat a lot and not feel fat. ha!
Entrees: **Arnisia Paidakia-​grilled lamb chops (3). IT’S A MUST. Their most famous dish. Not a big fan of lamb but wow, it’s super good. Cooked prefect with a good amount of redness. The seasoning was perfect. Not too salty.
**Goat Stew (Special, off the menu) with soft cheese and artichokes. — My first time having goat. It’s like a pork stew. Very tasty, not bad at all.
Dessert**Baklava — Traditional walnut & honey baklava with vanilla-​praline ice cream — Ordered for the birthday dessert. OMG so freaken good. Never had it before but its flakely on the outside and soft on the inside. YUM! Wantng for more!
Loukoumades — Traditional Greek doughnuts with honey, cinnamon & walnuts. — The mini donuts was just okay but its super pretty and it came out hot. Fresh!
I can’t wait to come back!

I really enjoyed my experience at Kokkari. It is renowned in San Francisco for delicious Greek food and exceptional service. Kokkari is not an every night kind of restaurant, but great if you are looking to celebrate something special. Be sure to make reservations in advance.
There menu consists of all things Greek. We started off with some drinks at the bar, which we took to our table once it was ready. Instead of ordering a main plate each, we choose several of the appetizers, this way we made sure we could try a greater variety of dishes. Some of the favorites out of all the plates we tried were: Zucchini Cakes, Lamb Short Ribs, House-​made Grilled Pita with Tzatziki. We also finished it off with some dessert, an amazing sundae — The Kokkari Sundae — with chocolate and vanilla ice cream, whipped cream and toasted hazelnuts.
Overall, my experience at Kokkari was great. It certainly lived up to the hype. From the brick oven where they cook the pitas, to the open kitchen concept, you really feel like you’re getting an authentic Greek experience!

I’m in love with this place. My bf took me here for an early Valentines Day dinner and it was amazing!
We had a reservation at 8, we got here a little later than that but we were seated right away.
We started off with appletinis, which were bomb– very sweet and tasted like jolly ranchers. We decided to order a bunch of appetizers and one entrée to share. The entrees are pretty big, and we decided we would rather try more things.
For our appetizers we ordered the grilled octopus, grilled lamb riblets, and cucumber yogurt with pita. For our entrée we ordered the dry-​aged rib-​eye and it was cooked to perfection.
Everything just tasted amazing. My favorite was probably the octopus and the rib-​eye. I can’t wait to come back and try more of their menu!

Classy restaurant.
Kokkari Estiatorio took my Greek dining experience to a totally different level. I have heard a lot about this place from my friends and finally made it in here today. I came in for lunch with 2 of my girl friends. We did get in here about 11:45 AM but unfortunately, we did not make a reservation. So we got ourselves seated at the bar. And the hospitality was as good as, if would have been seated at those nice tables.
It is a great place to have your birthday lunch/​dinner or come here on a romantic date or just with friends. But make sure you have a RESERVATION!
The service was perfect to the dot. Our waiter was very knowledgeable. He started off with the specials list and got our drinks and appetizers taken care off right away. The service was not too slow considering a fully packed house.
We were served with complimentary bread and olive oil (which by itself was filling up my tummy).
And this is what we ordered:
We shared 2 appetizers. Spanakotiropita (filo pies) and the Zucchini cakes (as recommended by Stephanie Y). I highly recommend the zucchini cakes. It came with a side of mint yogurt dressing which complimented the cakes so well. There were 3 pieces per order which was perfect for us.
For the entrees, I ordered the ravioli and my friends ordered the Chicken Souvlaki, which is basically chicken skewers. Since it is the season of Lent, I had to stick to vegetarian food. The ravioli was pretty good and I felt the portion was good enough for me.
I will be back for more. I definitely do want to try the non-​vegetarian dishes after Lent.
This is one place I didn’t mind paying a little more because of all the good food and hospitality. It came up to $ 45 per person including the tips.
Highly recommend this place!

I had a subpar experience at Kokkari for lunch years ago but decided to give it another go due to the overwhelmingly positively reviews (both on Unilocal and from friends), Once again, I’m simply not impressed.
I met up with two girl friends and we ordered 2 apps, 3 mains and 1 dessert. The apps were the lamb meatballs and the fried smelt. Mains were the rotisserie of the day (lamb), the lamb shank and the seabass. And we got the dessert that starts with a ‘k’ that I can’t pronounce.
The apps were ok, nothing special. I like the smelt more than the lamb meatballs. I thought they probably took too long to bring out the smelt because it’s no longer piping hot so not as crunchy as it should be. I thought it was oversalted. The lamb meatballs were pretty bad, I thought. It was too salty and the lamb was too dense and hard, not tender at all. The flavor was tomato heavy, with nothing more than just salty and sour.
The seabass, which didn’t look like seabass to me, was a whole fish. I thought seabass are huge fishes. This one was deboned for us and it tasted more like a river fish. It was too salty and also just not enough aromatics. I like my flavors layers and not one note and this dish definitely fails the test. The lamb shank was also too salty (see a trend here?) and also one note. Throw some figs into the braising liquid or something. I can’t taste anything other than salt and it doesn’t nothing to bring out the sweetness of the lamb shank. My favorite item of the entrees was the rotisserie lamb. Somehow they managed not to bombard the dish with salt (!) and I could taste more nuance flavors of the meat. I could also taste the herbs they used to marinate the meat. The potatoes were also good.
I think my favorite item of the night was the dessert. It wasn’t perfect either. It’s fried filo drenched in honey, topped with a pistachio (?) custard and on top of that, crème fraîche. I would have like the dessert much more if they used some sort of short bread crust instead of the slivered filo. The filo was stringy and stale in texture, either crunchy nor soft. It was just weird and unpleasant texture. The custard and the whipped crème fraîche was perfect combination, though.
The service is OK. The waiter was adequate but the bus boys were really great about refilling waters. Maybe I’m, just too picky, but for the reputation and the price, I expect a much better meal. The food was way over salted and just so one note. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me. Definitely never coming back here again. It’s really too bad because I really wanted to like this restaurant because the décor here is fabulous and romantic.

I’ve had Kokkari for dinner on my birthday every year for the past 5 years and it never disappoints. In fact, it’s become tradition and I love it. Every once in a while I head over for lunch and guess what? It’s just as good!
Last week, my friend was able to get a last min reservation which is tough to do. I found out that they turn away over 300 calls a day because they are so packed all the time! Crazy huh? Never the less, we were seated with the consistent hospitality that I’ve experienced every time I’ve dined there.
We ordered the following:
Fried Smelt (Fries with eyes) — Probably my favorite appetizer. I mean, come on. Fish you can eat like french fries. Just silly.
Octopus — Tenderized to perfection.
Branzino (for each of us) — Head on and everything. Lemon, oregano, olive oil over an open flame. Stupid good.
This place lives up to the hype and more. Book ahead and don’t miss your reservation because they are impossible to get!

It took a couple tries for me to find the right door to enter the restaurant, but once we did, I was super duper happy.
…It was raining pretty hard outside. Who wouldn’t be excited to get outta the rain?
Great place to go if you want to test someone’s pronunciation skills. The names of each item on the menu are complicated. I think that’s why my girl decided to take me here for my birthday! They even test the waiters’ pronunciation skills!
Price: Look to spend at least $ 30 per entrée.
Parking: Street. We UBERed.
Food:
— Zucchini cakes (actual name is complicated!!), per Unilocalers suggestions, was our appetizer. It came out to be two thick zucchini cakes, probably the diameter of a tennis ball or so, and some tatziki sauce. It was super delicious, flavorful, and just the right texture. I enjoyed it very much!
— WHOLE FISH is what I ordered. The fish of the day was sea bass which I took grilled with lentils. We were laughing about how this dish could not possibly be a whole piece of fish, but it was! I did SERIOUS damage though. This was super tasty and quite refreshing. I loved squeezing the lemon on which added zest. My only complaint would be that this dish was swimming in oil.
— Pork chop special is what my girl ordered. There were about 5 hefty pieces of pork that were moist and lean, had the right amount of fat. Of course she only ate 3 pieces because she’s notorious for never finishing her COFFEE!
–Baklava — Sweet, crunchy, sticky, not bad
Overall, this restaurant is huge but I would still make reservations. Restrooms are downstairs.

Restaurante aconchegante, comida maravilhosa e atendimento ótimo!!!vale a pena pedir o carneiro mesmo que vc não goste pois é divino!!!

Ein sehr elegantes Restaurant, hochwertige Einrichtung, schöné Farben. Offene Küche als Theke. Eine sehr große und luxuriöse Weinkarte. Reservierung dringend erforderlich. Das Restaurant ist weniger ein Familienrestaurant sondern mehr für romantische Dinner zu zweit oder als krönender Abschluss von Businessmeetings gedacht. Preise sind gehoben, aber man bekommt auch geschmacklich was für sein Geld. Auch die Portionen sind appetitlich aber üppig. Ideal für Fleisch und Lammliebhaber. Mein Mann hatte ein dryaged Ripeye mit Knochen und ich hatte diverse Stücke vom ganzen Lamm, was auf dem Grill war. Das Steak war eine Bombe und eines der besten was wir jemals hatten, aber mit knapp 50 Dollar, sollte man auch einiges Erwarten können. Round about 3 Gänge mit hervorragendem kalifornischem Rotwein waren wir bei 200 Dollar. Nix für jeden Tag, aber was Besonderes!