Kouzina by Trata

Closed.

Great food and great service! Very friendly staff and authentic as any restaurant can get to Greek Food in the middle of Manhattan. Recommend it to any authentic cuisine hunters.

This pretty, clean-​cut, no-​nonsense Greek establishment sits nestled on 70^th and 2^nd of the UES. Pop in if you’re up for chatting over good Greek wine, and/​or your hypertension (and your doctor) clamor for a Mediterranean meal.
As for the meal, the Octopodi appetizer was a tasty starter.
The Lavraki was a sticking point for me. I’ve had my fair share of deboned whole fish, but this presentation was bit too literal for my liking. The fish was fresh, but I expect a lot more creativity and unique flavor from the Upper East Side.
The staff politely informed us that the Arni Youvetsi was in the oven and would take some time to cook, but lamb is always worth the wait, and this was no exception.
There’s really nothing bad I can say about Kouzina. The one word that accurately describes it is RELIABLE. That being said, there’s also nothing that makes this place stand out.

Food — great — liked all the starters and entrees we ordered.
Nice outdoor seating and generally nice ambience.
Service — schizophrenic — first the manager came in grumpy because we brought a dog w/​us (we had of course checked w/​the hostess who said it was fine). We purposely asked to be seated in an outdoor corner seat. Seconds after loudly demanding an explanation for the dog, another co-​manager came along being all friendly and chatted w/​us about our pet and shared his pet stores and pictures!
Another anecdote related to the service — when they didnt have two of the wines listed on their menu, the server did the «hey its not me, I just work here» (and no, he wasn’t being funny) even though I did not ask or say anything to him about the limited wine fare.
This might be the only time I left a restaurant feeling thoroughly confused and annoyed, but w/​a good taste in my mouth :-)

If I were rating this place strictly on my dinner, it would possibly get one star. But because my friends all seemed to like their food a lot it gets two. I’d even go so far as to guess that most people would rank it three stars, but not I.
First things first, however. Upon arrival, the waiter brought us out some toasty bread. However, after biting into it, we realize this wasn’t toasty bread at all. It was stale bread that they toasted up to try to mask its age. Maybe there are restaurants that can do this successfully. This was not one of them.
I ordered my snapper rare. It came out medium. There was a bone towards the front of the fillet, and a bone towards the end. At least the brussels sprouts were good.
As a side, I ordered the roasted potatoes. They were seven dollars. There were seven potatoes. A dollar per little potato. They were okay, if dry, but not worth a dollar and change each.
However, people really seemed to like the moussaka. And the burger. And the other fish dish. So maybe I got the bad meal between everybody. Maybe it’s the kind of place that does meat better than fish. But I’d have reservations about going to a place that isn’t good for several things.

This was very good. The greek salad was delicious and fresh. It wasn’t tainted by those nasty grape leaf wraps. The spreads were delicious. The spicy feta one was a bit too spicy. The bronzino was very good as was the mousaka. The greek yogurt dessert and cheese cake were also delicious. The Greek coffee was also quite good. Service was good too.
The bathrooms were very clean but the hand dryer didn’t work.

The service was excellent and the atmosphere was very nice. Our waiter was great and even chatted with us a bit about his time in Mykonos and Santorini. We had 3 spreads to start with which were all excellent. My favorite was the feta based spread. My wife had the chicken souvlaki which was quite good. I had the Greek Burger which was excellent. I highly recommend it. We even bought some greek honey from them, since we’ve missed having it since our trip to Greece a few years ago. We’ll definitely be back!

Excellent 5 star Greek food. Authentic with a quality twist. I Highly recommend anything on the menu.

Wonderful place! Went there for a late dessert and was seated promptly and kindly. This was during a warm summer day, and the outdoor seating area was great. Unlike some places on 2^nd Ave, the tables were far enough away from the street that you don’t have to worry about getting run over. I got a honey and yogurt dessert that tasted unlike any you can get in the store. My friend just got coffee, but the waiter was super friendly and kept giving her re-​fills and didn’t sneer at the fact that we weren’t ordering a huge meal.