Greek Village Souvlaki — Restaurant in Ottawa

I've dropped by on three separate occasions now — hint, hint, I kept going back, and will again tomorrow! — and promised myself I'd finally get this review in after being such a scatter-brain every other time!

I happened to be nearby since I was visiting the public library at Ben Franklin place. Asking the librarians for the inside scoop on where the best place to get a bite to eat was, I got a couple different recommendations and eventually visited Greek Village Souvlaki for the first time around a month ago.

I've worked my way through the menu by now, but for my first visit, I went for the Out of Pita with Chicken Souvlaki.

I hadn't had chicken souvlaki in probably close to a decade, and it was just as delicious as I remember souvlaki being back on the Danforth in Toronto...

Unless you're getting a salad, don't expect lettuce. You're gonna get onions and tomatoes instead, and you're going to love them!

There's a commitment to keeping things simple that definitely works, because my first time was fantastic.

After that, I ended up going back hungry for more and tried the Between Two Pitas with the Pork Gyros, which is kinda like a club sandwich in terms of form factor. It's also kinda like a shawarma in the sense that the meat is chipped(?) or chunked(?) instead of being a ribbon like you'd find with a beef donair.

Served on top of a bed of fries, instead of having the fries inside the sandwich like when you order the sandwich, it was again, delicious, and so much food that even as a rather hefty fellow, if I do say so myself, I was so full I had to skip dinner and settle for a midnight snack instead later on in the evening!

I also ended up asking if there were any desserts available because I remembered getting loukoumades and galaktoboureko since those were some of my favourites. No luck on the honey balls, but they did have the custard wrapped in filo and then drizzled with syrup. Gosh, maybe that's why I was so full!

Today I completed the hat trick and got the sandwich with a strawberry tart for dessert that totally blew my socks off! The wrap was fantastic, though a tad heavy on the tzatziki in the first bite and light by the last bite, but after a quick chat with the owner — who is incredibly friendly and helpful! — I'm not afraid to ask for my tzatziki to be spread a tad more evenly next time, and there WILL be a next time.

TL;DR Incredibly fresh and tasty, don't miss out on Greek Village Souvlaki! The food is fantastic, the prices more than fair, and I imagine the friendly owner attracts friendly customers, too, since they've been plenty helpful anytime I seemed to need it. :D

I'll be going back again and again anytime I'm spending the day at the library because I don't think there's any better place...

At the base, the pita and vegetables were great. The tzatziki was extremely garlicky, more reminiscent of shawarma garlic sauce with a yogurt base than tzatziki. It's great if you like that, but it's not really what I want when I expect tzatziki.

We ordered the wraps. Chicken gyro, pork souvlaki and chicken souvlaki. The portions were generous, and the extra dollop of sauce on top was a great choice.

The chicken souvlaki meat was delicious. It was soft, tender and flavourful. No complaints at all.

On the other hand, the chicken gyro meat was dry and tough, leathery, as though it had been sitting there all day. Many pieces were just inedible and had to be spit out because they were like chewing bits of plastic.

The pork souvlaki meat had good flavour, but it also had a lot of chewy gristle that made the whole thing really unappetizing.

Overall, as it stands, I don't think I would order here again. There are a lot of great sounding appetizers and other food but our experience was extremely disappointing from somewhere with such high ratings.

Edit: to respond to the owner's response, I want to say that the chicken was the texture of meat left in an oven to roast for too long. It was hard and unchewable, not a thing that is part of a chicken recipe. The pork wasn't "fatty", as I have no problem with fatty meat, this pork was cooked without trimming the tough connective tissue like silver skin. The kind that doesn't break down when you chew.

I can say that I'm pretty disappointed in the owner's response being "you just don't like our recipe" when that is certainly not the...

Excellent! Much better quality than Cosmo's on Greenbank for sure (a relative got food poisoning from Cosmo's a little while back, ugh, and the quality has dropped ever since covid). We heard good things about Greek Village and decided to try it out last night (Valentine's) for take out and was not disappointed. Service was kind and friendly. We ordered a chicken gyro, a pork gyro, a chicken skewer platter, loukaniko, baklava and all were delicious. I definitely suggest ordering in advance so you don't have to wait as long when you're there. It took about 15min after ordering which is ok, but it was a fairly simple order that probably could've been faster. Hopefully they speed up the service a bit in time. All good though, they just opened so everything's new and you have to cut them a bit of slack. The food and flavours were spot on, the tzatziki was delicious; they could add a bit more protein to the gyros though as they were a bit french-fry heavy compared to the protein. They 100% MUST add shaved gyro meat (beef/lamb) as an option to their gyro selection. A piled-high beef gyro sandwich in their style would taste FIRE and be a game-changer for them. All that said, I definitely recommend this place if Greek Souvlaki House (GOAT) is too far out of your way and you live closer to Centrepointe. A great addition to Ottawa-west...