The Aylesbury Society....
caring for all the town's built environment
‘Dining with Zorba’
at the Greek Taverna, 23a Walton Street
by Frances KingHooray! A new restaurant has opened in Aylesbury Town Centre.
This welcome addition is the Greek Taverna, a Greek restaurant situated at the bottom of Walton Street opposite the County Offices in a Grade 2 listed house. You could quite easily drive past without noticing it, but we happened to walk past a few weeks ago when it was being fitted out, and decided to give it a few weeks to ‘settle down’ before visiting.
Thank goodness we booked, because when we arrived on a Saturday about 8.30 every visible table was taken, although there was additional seating at the rear of the building, and we understand there is also an outside dining area at the back.
Our order was taken very promptly, and, although all 6 of us initially picked a starter each, we were advised by the waiter to order three plates of a selection of ‘starters for two’ which would be ample to ‘whet our appetites’. We did so, and they were correct. These platters consisted of a selection of savoury dishes, such as taramasalata, houmus, meat balls etc.For the main course I selected kleftiko (lamb shank cooked Greek style) and Roger picked Taverna Special. The portions were more than ample, and beautifully cooked. As usual, Roger couldn’t resist a dessert, and chose Greek yogurt with Greek honey and nuts. The rest of us had will-power, and stuck with coffee to round off the evening - although two did indulge in Irish coffees!!
We really couldn’t fault the evening. The food was delicious and the service very helpful and friendly. We did have a little wait between the first and main courses, which was probably due to the volume of diners, but this really didn’t matter because we were with friends and enjoying ourselves. We were expecting some traditional plate smashing but this didn’t materialise, although a couple of the waiters did undertake a little Zorba-the-Greek-type dancing with willing customers, but this wasn’t obtrusive and only lasted a few minutes.
So, including the three platters to start, six main courses, one dessert, six coffees, including two Irish, plus 3 bottles of wine, the bill came to £25 per person. Pretty good I think, and worth every penny. The fact that we were amongst the last diners to leave says it all really – and that had nothing to do with slow service. We had a really good evening, and will certainly be visiting again.
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