Koutouki Taverna

Not a good experience at all! It is a hole in the wall place, when you walk in you feel like you’re walking into some mom and pop Café. I went there with a group of 8 people for a friends birthday. The service was INCREDIBLY SLOW, like I started ordering 2 glasses of wine at a time cause it took 10+ minutes to get a drink. The food was so expensive. Minimum price for an entrée was like $ 35. And not a single person at our table enjoyed our entrée, most of our plates were full when they took them from the table which also took like 30 minutes once we stacked them all at the end of our table… I had the roast lamb… They brought out one giant plate with the lamb on it, then another medium plate with the potato things which tasted awful and rice then ANOTHER plate with the vegetables… Every entrée was 3 plates. It was very annoying and confusing! Then this very loud music came on and a half naked belly dancer came out dancing with bells on her hands. Collecting cash from various people stuffing it in her clothing lol. Basically… If you are wanting to go just to have drinks and fun. It’s good but I would NOT recommend it for a nice romantic dinner or anything of that sorts.

My wife and I have had the pleasure of indulging in this unique eatery on several occasions.
Décor is a little… rustic. but the food is simply amazing. Authentic, fresh, and flavourfull!
Service was good and prices were fair.
What more can I say!
We’ll deffinitely be back!

I found this restaurant to be extremely mediocre and very very expensive. My office is right across the street, and we all avoid this place. It’s not worth the price at all.

Service was good as was the food. No complaints. Just a nice dinner with the family on the patio. Love the quirkiness of Koutouki both south and central locations.

Went there to celebrate by father’s 84^th birthday a couple of weeks ago.
The outside of the building is old and has a run down look with paint pealing and chipped walls. The inside is beautifully decorated and you feel like you have been whisked away to a Greek courtyard!
We were hoping for a wonderful Greek dinner but got anything but that for a ridiculously expensive price.
The waiter at first seemed happy to see us until my elderly parents appeared. His behaviour started becoming bizarre after that. Like a split personality. One minute wanting to please, the other quite rude and impatient.
We were disappointed not to find Taramosalata on the menu but the waiter said «no problem» and that the kitchen could make it easily for us. We should have passed on it. Worst we have ever tasted! It tasted like a very salty, bitter mayonnaise whip.
We then ordered the fried calamari, it was good. Typical battered and deep fried dish.
This was followed by a cooked spinach and feta salad. Cooked meant boiled a bunch of spinach plopped in the middle of a small plate and surrounded by a couple of vegetable slices and 6 small cubes of cheese.
Two of us ordered the moussaka. It was very salty and the potato layers were not layered between the eggplant, etc. they were instead placed around the rim of the ramekin the dish was served in. It was also badly «warmed up». The outside potatoes were hot (probably freshly cooked) while the rest of the moussaka was from hot to refrigerator cold towards the middle. It was a very expensive dish costing $ 27. Most expensive moussaka I’ve ever eaten.
Others ordered the lamb souvlaki which was supposed to come with mixed vegetables and rice. It did, but very small portions for an high price. The lamb was rubbery and we had difficulty tasting the difference between lamb and beef. I eat A LOT of lamb, this one barely tasted like lamb. It was lamb but so faint in flavour. The quantity and quality was less than your fast food joints!
We finished off with dessert. My dad was served a free birthday cheesecake slice which was tasty.
I ordered the crème caramel which was anything but creamy. It was so thick that it was almost rubbery.
Now, we did not complain about the meal as we were hungry and ate it. When it comes to Greek food, we are particular as we go out to various Greek restos and expect a certain quality but know that people have different tastes. The food was edible but not that good.
We had asked for separate bills but the waiter forgot. I started trying to figure it out but he insisted on getting us two bills. He returned with two bills filled with errors. When I tried to point that out, he got very agitated and grabbed them, yes, grabbed them from my hand.
He then came back with two other bills, mine looked ok but was missing an item. When I tried to look at the other, he grabbed it and said, «No! I say it is fine!» and gave it to my mother to pay. As it was just the pita bread, I let it go. Sure did not want to argue with that waiter. He scared me.
Thank goodness you get a 10% off discount for checking in on Unilocal!I already hated paying what we did for the quantity and quality we got. We will certainly not be returning there.

I think this place is trying to be fancy at a run down restaurant. The prices were much higher then I expected. It was good though. The best thing about this place is the Belly Dancer they had, she was fantastic. Its fun to have something different when you go to a restaurant.

To be fair, I have enjoyed many nice meals here (thus the 3 stars), but we stopped going last year because the last time we went, everything just seemed to taste different. New chef maybe?
For one thing, I found out that they had recently started to make the tzatziki with goat milk/​yogurt. I can’t stand the taste of the stuff, so was unpleasantly surprised when I tried it (I used to love it when they made it with cow products). This is the first Greek restaurant that I’ve been to that made it with goat milk/​yogurt so it was a bit surprising. I was very disappointed because I dip pretty much everything in the tzatziki… to me it’s an essential part of a Greek meal. I think goat milk/​yogurt is an acquired taste, so I would not be putting that stuff in something as mainstream as tzatziki so as not to turn off some customers. Just my 2 cents. I am sure plenty of people love it.
This place is fairly expensive for what it is. We just couldn’t justify spending that kind of money on meze that wasn’t as good as it once was.
The pros — I cannot remember her name, but the blond waitress who worked there forever was great. So friendly and attentive. The ouzo prawns and saganaki were always delicious. The melitzaosalata was always good as well. The calamari was yummy. The place is decorated as you’d expect a Greek restaurant to be decorated… I liked it.
Never seemed to be too busy when we’d go, but we tend to dine earlier than a lot of folks.

Visiting from San Francisco and have had Greek food in lots of cities in my travels. This one ranks pretty close to the top. Excellent setting, nice décor. Our waiter Nikos was on top of everything. The roast lamb was spectacular. Other main dishes– chicken in spinach sauce, rack of lamb, calamari– a bit less so. Village salad worked well. Last time there had a meze plate which was also very good, but not the stomach capacity for it this time. Good wine, Good music. Needs a bouzouki band. Not sure how easy it is to get to via public transportation. Expensive. But I would definitely go back again.

My absolute favorite for a night out! Great food and fun environment!!!

Food & atmosphere is awesome can’t wait to go back

I’ll start off by saying the service was great, our waitress was sweet and funny and she’s always great every time we go. The food was really good and I loved the bottle of wine I ordered.
We ordered the meze for 5 people. It’s $ 38 a person, and it’s what I always order. This was the first time having it with 5 people (usually it’s 2). We honestly felt so ripped off. The portion size was probably for about 3 people. Barely enough calamari to go around, half a potato per person, a tiny little bowl of vegetables that not everyone even got, but the worst was the lamb. It was mostly bones, and only two people ate it, there wasn’t enough for anyone else! Even after ordering dessert, I was still hungry.
Everyone felt the same after, a bitter taste in our mouth that felt like we got ripped off. I thought about emailing the restaurant directly because I really do love it there, but what’s the point? It will be a while before any of us go back.

I took my wife here for Valentines. We were out of town for a few months and we got back into town 3days before valentines. I called a few places this being one my list.
They were able to book us a table and were very accommodating the entire night. We were served an 8 course meal including the desert… wow it was amazimg food. Definitely would go again.

My friend and I were very disappointed tonight. The place was not very crowded when we came in, we now know why. Started off with two appetizers. Keftedes and dolmades. The keftedes were dry, they fell apart when you stuck your fork in them, and they were bland and tasteless. The dolmades were excellent and tasty.
However, I ordered the rack of lamb, and my friend ordered the file. Both were poorly prepared, lacked proper seasoning, and were bland. The lamb was particularly dry.
The best part of the meal was the beer… I guess they can’t screw that up too much.
We were very disappointed overall, it was an unappetising meal that was also overpriced. Never coming back. If it were not for the friendly waitress and good service, my review would have gotten one star.

I have been to this location twice now. The first time was only ‘okay’ so I decided to give it a try a second time. Their customer service is terrible and food mediocre. Will not return or recommend this location. The other location on 124^st is way better.

That was bad. The prawns were way over cooked and tasteless. They didn’t even take the time to clean out the black veins. Wow. Greek salad was mediocre at best. Expensive to boot. Never going back.

Greek restaurant on the south side of Edmonton. Nice decore feels like one of the restaurants we went to in Santorini. Low ceilings with Vines across the ceiling. Food is expensive. No bread or anything to munch on while waiting for your food unfortunately. Drinks pricy. Individual lamb skewers were bland at $ 12 each! Large portions for pistacho but not up to fine dining standards for $ 25. Many entrees were $ 35. I found the wood chairs very uncomfortable with little padding. I am slim but they didn’t fit my derrière. Nice outdoor patio. Staff were very attentive and very polite.

Once upon a time, there was a young girl who bought a Seventeen magazine. The September 1979 issue, to be precise. And although she hadn’t cooked much in her 13 years, that magazine carried a recipe that sounded too scrumptious not to try. Something called Pastitsio– a Greek dish.
She brushed up her cooking skills making this dish. Something very labor intensive, but OH-​SO-​DELICIOUS. Something guaranteed to please even the pickiest eater.
Okay, yes, the girl was me. I fell in LOVE with this casserole– a layered baked pasta, with a layer of macaroni, a layer of seasoned meat (the Greeks use cinnamon, to give it that extra oomph of flavor), and then a layer of bechamel butter parmesan sauce over the top that gets baked into the rest.
Sadly, I LOST this amazing recipe in one of my moves. The magazine must have gotten mixed in with something else getting tossed out. I even wrote and asked SEVENTEEN magazine for the recipe. Sadly, they do not keep archives that far back. I was bereft for years.
Flash forward to last Thursday. Allan G drove me to work because of the nasty weather (yes, i get chauffeur service in crappy weather. Why do you ask?). When he came to pick me up later that night, we were stuck on the south side and craving dinner.
A friend of mine had recommended this place to me a while back, so I mentioned Greek, and Al’s mouth started watering. So Koutouki it was.
I loved the blue and cream alternating ceramic tile floor, and the rustic interior. When we sat down to order and I saw there was pastitsio (they spell it pastichio, I believe), I was excited but not expecting much. Many Greek restaurants don’t even have it on the menu because it’s so labor-​intensive. But when I find a place that does, I have to order it, just in case.
Ladies and gentlemen, I have finally found my replacement pastitsio. The best part? I don’t have to cook it myself!
All the best parts are there– the macaroni was perfectly cooked, the meat sauce perfectly seasoned with that touch of cinnamon, and the bechamel was lovely and puffy and cheesy on top. I was convinced I’d died and gone to heaven.
Al was not as impressed with his lamb, and after trying a bit, I agreed that it could use a bit more seasoning. A small quibble.
The main thing? I have found my pastitsio, at last. If you need something warm, and wonderful, and stick-​to-​your-​ribs-​y, that’s chock full of cheesy goodness, simply come here and be blown away.

came here for lunch with a friend. when we got here we thought the place was closed, at least thats what the time on the door said. We were heading back to the car when the owner came out and called us back in. Had lamb kabobs, it was sooooooo gooooood! the rice and potato was awesome! the owner was serving us. he was so nice! it was a little pricey but we didnt mind paying because of the awesome service and great taste!

I LOVE THIS PLACE!
We went on a Sunday night after work and unfortunatly there were no dancers (though I heard they are great!), the restaurant wasn’t too busy so we got served very quickly. We even got a dish on the house!
Im not a big fan of greek food but all of it was WONDERFUL! I wouldn’t hesitate to go back and recommend it to EVERYONE!
The staff were wonderful and very attentive.
5 STARS!

If you’re craving Greek food– this is the place to be!
Fabulous food, amazing service, entertainment. What more could you ask for?
Every time I go here I get «Yianni’s Meze.» It is made for 2 or more people, and it is a multi-​course dinner. It starts with salads and dips, paired with pita and the moves on to potato, rice, chicken, lamb and seafood platters.
I have always been impressed by the service and the food. The price is up there, which is why I don’t go there as much as I would like, but as special occasions go — this is the place.
I have also heard that sometimes a belly dancer will make her way through the dinning room from table to table and sometimes plates get broken.
I haven’t seen the spectacle myself, but I continue to go back for the impeccable service and food.