Oikos is the new Greek Restau­rant, in the the south­ern most southest part of Mira­mar,  on the 2 bus route, and close to the cycle tun­nel. This is firm­ly in Greek ter­ri­to­ry of Welling­ton. The local fish’n’chip shops also serve a vari­ant of Greek food (yeros most­ly), which is a deli­cious alter­na­tive to fried fish. There’s Greek clubs and soci­eties, a Greek shop in Kil­birnie near­by (Taste of Greece), and many local kiwis will declare their Greek her­itage, speak­ing some Greek lan­guage in their homes, and trips to Greece to vis­it the land of their par­ents and grand­par­ents. So I expect­ed this to be authen­tic Greek but also kiwi as.

This new restau­rant is in an area under-served by good food. North Mira­mar is awash with amaz­ing restau­rants (The Larder, Cafe Polo, La Bocalo­ca) but South Mira­mar and Strath­more have only had the amaz­ing Burg­er King (and maybe Gyp­sy Kitchen for lunch).

It’s plau­si­ble you could vis­it this restau­rant on the way to the air­port (after check­ing in lug­gage even). This local block of shops dates from before the air­port was built. The dairy has long ago shut down, after the petrol sta­tion opened. The Chi­nese restau­rant burned down dra­mat­i­cal­ly last year.

We booked a table online — this is love­ly instant way to book a table. I received a text mes­sage ask­ing me to con­firm the book­ing (by fol­low­ing a link). 10 min­utes lat­er they phoned us to con­firm again. The line was noisy and my hear­ing is ter­ri­ble. By now we were well and tru­ly con­firmed.

Gosh it’s a love­ly tiny restau­rant. Sooth­ing green colours with nat­ur­al wood. They’ve used those cage light shades that don’t actu­al­ly shade the light down­wards but they look pret­ty.

The staff were super busy. It was tricky to flag them down. They are indeed extreme­ly pop­u­lar. While we wait­ed for some­one to notice us at our table a crowd formed inquir­ing for a table. Most were turned away, as they were ful­ly booked. Some decid­ed to get take­away.

We man­aged to order. Pita breads with tztati­ki. Lamb Kleft­iko. Chick­en Kala­ma­ki. Spet­so­fai pork sausage. The lamb melt­ed, as all good slow cooked red meat should. It was sticky sweet, but not too sticky sweet. The pork was salty, but not too salty. The chick­en a bit dry but oth­ers din­ing with us declared it the best of the dish­es. We had to re-order more pita bread a few times.

Alas, just as out meals turned up, the staff arrived with a dilem­ma. They’d dou­ble booked our table. Could we move?  We guess so. We were moved into the win­dow, shar­ing with anoth­er group — onto high stools at a high table, which was a bit awk­ward for the short­est mem­bers of our group (taku tamāhine, whitu).

But I have great news to report. They gave us free dessert to make amends. Let me describe the dessert. There was Louku­mades, which are dough­nut balls cov­ered in the most per­fect hon­ey, served with ice­cream. And there was a choco­late bakla­va. Our youngest was very amused that it came with “soil”.

The bill? Three peo­ple for $130. That’s with dessert free and a very very love­ly wine.