Elia Authentic Greek Restaurant — Restaurant in Las Vegas

I adore Elia! I started going here after a friend suggested Elia to me over a conversation on how to cook Branzino at home, since it’s not normally on most menus. “Well, if weather permits, grilling is always best or…you can go to Elia”

(Okay okay, you know I’m embellishing. It was more like, “Alexa, have you been to Elia?”)

Last night has been maybe my 5th time in the past year and a half and Elia has always been consistent with service and food quality.

I wish I could eat here more frequently! Just saw that they’ve added lunch times :) so that could be true . if I adjusted my budget. 😍but it would be so worth it.

I love that every single time I come here, I always learn a new word. I’ve never been to Greece, nor was I exposed to the food growing up. 😅I wish I can tell you that I’ve had almost everything on the menu but I keep the rotation of the same items.

When I don’t want to cook but I need fresh grilled fish, my instinct is to make a reservation at Elia. They’re moderately busy even on weekdays. I can’t imagine the crowd on a Friday or a weekend would be. This would be perfect for Friday lent! My only negative, is that since there’s usually a crowd, it gets quite loud. So almost everyone is trying to talk over each other. I wish they can add some acoustic buffering (even some soft things under the table will make a difference) so I can hear a friend across the table more so than the person next to me in another party.

It was my first time having Octopus at Elia and it rivals the quality of a beautiful tasting menu I’ve had in Asia. How in the world have they been able to ensure such seafood quality close to 300 miles away from the Ocean? I highly recommend it if you’ve always wanted to try to enjoy octopus but never had it cooked correctly.

I still have never had the salt-baked fish or the Saganaki. But you know I always need the Lavraki, it’s served with romanesco and beautiful olive oil. It adds some nice dimension but I still suggest getting a salad and can’t go wrong with the zucchini chips and I like the halloumi. I have also had amazing off-menu grilled Orata. The salads have such delicious tomatoes and are perfectly salted probably from the mix of an olive. Also have only had a dessert once for takeout because we have always been full enough to have some leftovers. The leftovers are not big enough for a whole meal but is usually a nice snack.

The menu looks simple and straightforward but it’s intentional and done well. I couldn’t ask for...

Once in while I go fruitlessly searching for a Greek restaurant - with little luck I might add. Firstly, there seem to be few of them in the San Francisco Bay Area and in the areas that I travel to, and secondly, when there is one, it is often a weak excuse for Greek food and even less in ambiance. There is one in the Bay Area, in Santa Clara, – where the owner greets and seats you. And….wait for it….I find a high quality, owner run, and well run I might add, across the parking lot in Las Vegas, Nevada. Not in the popular tourist areas of the city, but to the west, about 20 minutes from “The Strip”.

It is called “elia” (lower case “e”). It is at the back of the Best Western hotel/motel (pretty good also for what you get from Best Western, a bit worn in places but still reasonable). A small door under the sign welcomes you, and – the owner himself is inside to greet you. So nice. “Welcome to my restaurant, come in please”! How’s that for an appetizer…? We sit down and a clean, polite, attentive waiter introduces himself and makes sure that everything is on the table that should be there. No plastic flowers around, not much stuff hanging on the walls, and a bustling trade going on. There’s an outside dining area, I would say it is there because on a really busy night, it is needed. It looked like all the customers were local people. I know my Greek food from my Greek odyssey times, and I can only say that it was a great meal, careful attention to detail, and courteous staff. No (and I hate this with a passion) “Are you still working on that?” question. What a dumb thing to say to a customer is it not? Just leave me alone to try to enjoy what I am not “working on” but dining (rant over).

I would rate this extremely well run, excellent fare, politely staffed Greek restaurant as a 9/10. For example, from my days and nights in a five-star top of the line restaurant, I assert that one of the markers of a good restaurant is the cleanliness and the sparkling quality of the glassware, particularly the wine glasses. These were absolutely spotless! And dish rims were perfectly clean – no fingerprints from the chefs or waitstaff. The one point down, because I am a tough grader, there were some small items for which I deducted that point.

Great job, hard work pays off. Congratulations!

Go there and enjoy...

Nice Atomsphere and location with outside seating which was great for an Oct night. It went downhill from there. Initially it took a min to get service and when we did, we constantly had 3 different servers check on us and take the various parts of our order.

We started with the calamari which we sent back after it appeared to have gone bad. It smelled different and was extremely chewy. The new one that came back out appeared much of the same. The Souvlaki and Kota Spasti were the main dishes ordered. The Spasti was dry and tasteless, that even salt and pepper couldn’t elevate it just a little. Diving into the chicken Souvlaki, one of the chicken skewers was raw on the inside which I didn’t notice until I was already one piece in.

2 strikes and you’re out, well, we’re out. The server said he would take everything off but ended up coming back with a bill for the bottle of Pelligrino and the calamari. He apologized and said sorry, as he was told he couldn’t take off the calamari. The total was $28 and some change. $8 alone for the Pelligrino water, which, because you know the going rate for bottled water.

It was disappointing that no one other than the server came over, after it was clear who the two managers working were, from walking around and checking up on people. Well the one manager did open the door and look at us before the bill came and then quickly stuck his head back in.

We had hoped for better, but it was just a terrible waste of a nice Saturday night, wanting to go out to dinner. I guess I’ll update this if I end up getting the ol bubble guts later on….oh yeah, the...