Naos Hellenic Cuisine — Restaurant in Cary

We've been several times. Being told it's a soft opening months after the doors opened is a sure sign that expectations are being set low, but we've been extremely patient with poorly trained and clearly feuding staff. The place suffers from a gross lack of management/ownership oversight and staff clearly at odds with one another across all silos.

Food is hit or miss depending on the item. Some are truly exceptional stand outs and others are abysmally executed and a waste of what were likely high quality ingredients.

The service is exceptionally poor and this is consistent across our visits. The turnover is clearly visible among the staff between our visits and likely responsible for many of the issues.

On both visits it was very clear that the front and back end staff are at odds with one another.

The kitchen staff, per the front end (different wait staff every time), are rude, belligerent, entitled and cruel. I don't know the kitchen's side of the story here, but I can tell you the staff has been consistent with this.

I've had waitresses return to the table on the verge of tears and when asked if everything was okay, they broke down sobbing. Once is an anomaly, several times is a trend. Either the front end is fragile or the back end is what I'm told of the front end. Either way, I won't continue to entertain supporting an establishment where this is the case.

I've experienced egregious mishaps at every level of customer experience in this place. The hostess stand, the bar, the tables with wait staff and support who brings the plates to the tables. Some nights it's as if there's outright animosity between the factions.

Our branzino was delivered by wait staff and it sat for over 20 minutes while the wait staff was nowhere to be found. When they finally came, they said they had no idea it was delivered and would have it remade. It was clearly not remade as they brought the fish back out in three minutes with the exterior hot and the interior lukewarm.

The dolmades are the best I've ever had, but even this is grossly inconsistent. I've received some that were similar to a tube of chapstick/lip balm and others which were the size of an an empanada. Zero consistency and sometimes the presentation is a mess on the plate while other times it's as expected.

If you want to add a protein to a salad, you'd better bring your own because such requests will not be accommodated.

The spanakopita and moussaka are mediocre, I prefer it at Sassool, frankly.

The lamb was delivered to the table lukewarm but otherwise prepared well.

The octopus and squid are solid entries.

The salads are lackluster and were sent to the table missing several items defined on the menu.

The desserts are all rather mundane affairs and worth skipping.

Some of the cocktails are decent, some leave something to be desired.

It's obvious some people genuinely care and others do not. At which point, management or ownership needs to intervene and resolve the issues or this place will sink. All of the new staff needs to be shadowing with experienced staff. If the place is still here in 2 years, I'll be stunned and try it again. Until then, good luck, Naos, you'll be pursuing your fate without...

I'm not event sure what to say about Naos! This was my first time here after waiting for about a month to dine there. My husband and I along with two other couples had a planned a Valentine date night. We arrived at Naos and was seated immediately has we did have a reservation. While we were looking over the menu and taking in all the scenery, we discussed how beautiful it was inside. We got seated about 7:15 and about 7:35 we noticed that no one had come over to greet us, bring water, bread or even acknowledge us sitting there. We watched about 6 or 7 serves move about the room and interact with guest but not us. We watched them take pictures of guest, clear tables, fill water glasses, bring wine and food to the table. My husband finally got up to go ask for the manager and was asked by one of the serves, "do you need the restroom"? He did find the manager and she came to the table, automatically talking and saying I'm sorry I guess the servers were confused about who was going to take care of you. CONFUSED, for real I asked her. How is that possible when the servers were taking care of everyone around us. She asked us, what she could do to make it better and we said we don't know, that we were just taken back by the direct rudeness of the staff. She offered us water and a round of drinks. The problem with that is that we were having a dry February and not drinking. She just assumed offering us something free would fix it. We declined her offer and told her that we would not dine with them. She walked away from the table but before she did, she said out loud, " I tired" ! her a underline sharp tone. We walked out of the restaurant and people starred us at us as if we were wrong. Some even smerked at us. I have never felt so unseen any where, and i have dined at fine dining places such as Reys, Ruth Chris, Perry's etc.... We could feel that they really didn't value us as people or our money that we were going to spend there. Just to show you, they knew they were wrong, they sent an immediate gift to come back. What is this world coming too, that you can deliberately treat people...

First let me say this is a beautiful restaurant and there was top notch care taken to ensure the ambiance is exquisite. And the staff were quite attentive and thoughtful in their recommendations. Unfortunately though, the cuisine certainly left something to be desired. For starters, everything was ice cold! The fava purée that was served with the wood fired octopus came out like it was just taken out of the refrigerator and frankly the octopus itself just tasted like it was simply boiled without much flavor. And to the kitchen, don’t tell folks you are serving it chilled, patrons know it’s just laziness of taking already prepped food and serving it. Oh and the eggplant that was served with it was also ice cold. The skordalia same thing, it is supposed to have a creamy, whipped texture but again by premaking it and refrigerating at cold temps you end up with this clumpy, hard to scoop mix that just wasn’t appetizing. Shall I continue? The horta was the same, cold and it almost looked withered, a sign of a lack of freshness. And at the prices you are charging, it’s just unacceptable. Now, the branzino was decent, felt like Naos actually put effort into grilling it with some nice seasoning and the ladolemono was a nice touch. My wife had the seafood stew, which was ok, not much to comment. For dessert we had the orange phyllo cake and we quite enjoyed that, so props there. But let me close by saying this, I really want you all to be successful, the triangle is in desperate need of solid Greek Cuisine and currently this misses the mark. Please take a field trip to Astoria, NY, and try some Greek restaurants there, you can’t go wrong. I wish you the best of luck and hope you will take this feedback...