Just off the main track of Toronto’s Danforth you will find the Folia Grill in the nearby Pape Village. Toronto’s main drag for Greek restaurants is the on the Danforth but locals will know and tell you that the Greek influence on the neighborhood reaches beyond the Danforth.

Enter Folia Grill, newly opened (from October 2009) and located on the east side of Pape Avenue, just south of Cosburn. I caught wind of Folia’s existence just last week after reading a review in Blog TO. I would normally have heard about a new offering of Greek food in Toronto but let’s face it: the Greek restaurants in Toronto are in a rut (same old-same old).

Folia in Greek means nest and upon entering this small but cozy eatery, I immediately understand how the name came about. The decor is simple yet modern and I immediately feel at ease and why not? I have the husband and wife duo of George and Eleni to greet me!

Enough with the decor, Folia is about the food. They aren’t reinventing anything here but rather delivering the flavours of Greece that I know and that are sorely lacking. Folks, the offerings at Folia are of that which you will find at most “souvlatzithika” or fast food grills in Greece.

You should go to Folia for their pork souvlaki. It is made unabashedly and without apologies from a trimmed pork belly. Many souvlaki joints in Greece will use pork belly or pork butt to make souvlaki. The meat are of perfectly cubed belly that’s skewered, cooked on the grill of their open kitchen and seasoning with Greek sea salt, dry Greek oregano and basted with a Latholemono (olive oil and lemon dressing) and served with lemon wedges, more salt and oregano (upon request) and lemon wedges.

When you eat Souvlaki, you need bread. Folia Grill does not make their own pita bread but they have sourced an excellent supplier of pita bread. Your souvlaki at Folia can be ordered as sticks or you may have a souvlaki in one these fresh, fluffy pita breads with toppings being tomatoes, red onions (NOT cooking onions), Tzatziki and a few fries.

Sometimes, a business decision has to be made and Eleni & George opted to source their supply of french fries from a local distributor that offers “frozen fresh cut fries”. Nothing reconstituted here. They have a cut fry with some skin on the potato evident and frankly, they are as good as any fresh cut fries.

When one has souvlaki, one must have Tzatziki. As I sat and sampled most of the menu at Folia I had some concerns about what kind of Tzatziki I would be served. Sadly, many on the Danforth are serving Tzatziki that comes from a tub…as supplied by their large conglomerate food distributor – ever anxious to streamline the restauranteur’s delivery chain and save them money. In the case of Tzatziki, many on the Danforth have gotten lazy. Folia delivers with HOMEMADE TZATZIKI!

Strained Greek yogurt, the right amount of minced garlic, grated cucumber, lemon juice and fresh chopped dill all make the Folia Tzatziki remind me of home. George and Eleni also serve up some delicious Biftekia. They look like burgers but they are seasoned the Greek way with grated onions, spices and with Eleni’s own touch, some mint in the mix. The Folia biftekia are moist, seasoned well and delicious. Again, they make no compromise on flavour, opting for a 50/50 split on the choice of ground meat with both beef and pork being used.

One of the biggest disservices committed by north American Greek eateries is in their presentation of the Greek salad. When Greeks speak of a Greek salad, we mean the Horiatiki or Village Salad. The classic Greek Salad contains NO lettuce, okay? Once again, Folia Grill simply deliver the flavours of Greece with their authentic Greek Salad:

• well-sourced delicious tomatoes (local hot house tomatoes as we’re in the tail-end of winter)
• slices of red onions (it’s a pet peeve of mine when I see white cooking onions in a salad)
• slices of cucumbers with the skin on (I like skin on my cucumbers)
• Extra-virgin Greek olive oil, sourced from a local Greek who brings back the olive oil from a family plot near Tripoli
• Jumbo green olives (again sourced from the same fellow who supplies the Greek olive oil)

The final crowning glory of this Greek salad? The Feta cheese, made in Greece with either sheep or goat’s milk (or a combo of both). Eleni & George will never served anything but Greek Feta and the salad I ate was topped with the Dodoni brand of Feta. Bravo pedia!

I wished they included green peppers in the salad but then again, Folia Grill offers grilled peppers on their menu. A good-sized Cubanella (Anaheim) pepper gets grilled and then, while warm – is drizzeled with more of that Greek olive oil. As a northern Greek (come from a family with a love of peppers), this offering made my day. The roasted pepper all on it’s own is a beautiful thing. Give me a roasted pepper (or two), season it, dress it in olive oil and serve me some bread and Feta cheese. Heaven.

With Folia Grill being small, there’s not much space to do everything they want but what they do – is done with pride and joy. From the conversation I had with Eleni & George as they sat down with me while I ate from most of their menu is  that food excites them, they enjoy cooking and ultimately serving their customers quality Greek food.

I was looking forward to also sampling their chicken Gyro but alas…the Gyro was already sold out for the day. Folia’s reasoning?

‘We make enough Gyro to suit our anticipated demand. When it’s done – it’s done. We don’t place the unfinished cone back in the fridge to have it re-served the next day. On the odd occasion when there’s some leftover Gyro, we call the Starlight Foundation to come pick-up what’s left to feed the hungry.”

So, when one has lemons, you make lemonade. I didn’t get to try Folia’s chicken Gyro but that just means I’ll have to go visit them again soon!

UPDATE (March 16/2010)

I went back to Folia Grill for lunch with a friend and we both ordered a chicken Gyro on a pita. Tender pieces of chicken meat fell off the gyro cone and they were stuffed into my warmed pita that was dressed with Folia’s homemade Tzatziki, tomatoes, red onions and some fries. My first bite into the Gyro confirmed that their gyro was tender, juicy and the flavours of paprika, oregano and correctly seasoned. It’s important to also affirm that the chicken gyro is quite lean (very little fat dripped from my sandwich).

Another Greek fave, Romaine lettuce with scallions and dill salad

I still think about my fun evening supping at Folia…talking about two of my favourite subjects with Eleni & George: food and Greece and all the while eating some delicious, no bull Greek fast food. The icing on the cake has to be that Folia is also licenced and on my occasion, I knocked back a couple of bottles of icy cold Mythos beer from Greece.

Before you plan your trip to Folia Grill, I urge you to also order their hand-cut and breaded zucchini fries. They are light, seasoned just right, not greasy at all and served with the Folia Grill’s very own signature dipping sauce. Creamy red in colour, I asked Eleni for the ingredients and all she would share is that it contained Mayonnaise, paprika, mustard and other “secret ingredients”.UPDATE Dec.29, 2011: the ownership of Folia has changed. George and Eleni sold the business about a month ago and moved to BC and they’ve handed the business to an Albanian fellow. He’s pleasant, eager to please and although the food I ordered last week was good, it’s a little off from what I expect at Folia.

The souvlaki was underseasoned, the secret sauce for the zucchini sticks was tart and the batter on the zucchini sticks is different from old Folia. Keep us posted and and your comments on Folia.

Folia Grill is open from Monday to Saturday, 11am to 10pm

Sit-in or take-out is available: 416 – 424-2800

Folia Grill website

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© 2007-2010 Peter Minakis

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© 2010 – 2011, Peter Minakis. All rights reserved. If you are not reading this post in a feed reader or at http://kalofagas.ca then the site you are reading is illegally publishing copyrighted material. Contact me at truenorth67 AT gmail DOT COM. All recipes, text and photographs in this post are the original creations & property of the author.

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