Esperia Grill
Categories: Greek and Mediterranean, Pizza [Edit]
344 Washington St(between Academy Hill Rd & Chestnut Hill Ave)
Brighton, MA 02135 (617) 254-8337
- Hours:
Mon 11:00 a.m.-11:00 p.m.
Sun 12:00 p.m.-10:00 p.m. - Price Range: $
- Accepts Credit Cards: Yes
- Parking: Street, Private Lot
- Attire: Casual
- Good for Groups: Yes
- Good for Kids: Yes
- Takes Reservations: No
- Delivers: Yes
- Take-out: Yes
- Waiter Service: No
- Wheelchair Accessible: Yes
- Outdoor Seating: No
- Good for: Lunch, Dinner
- Alcohol: Beer & Wine Only
19 Reviews for Esperia Grill
Really friendly folks here with good Greek classics on the menu.
It's casual without sacrificing the quality of food.
Amazing Food!!! Get the Greek Salad with Gyro meat or a Gyro. It's also the best humes I have had in a long time.
Absolutely delicious food, huge portions, casual atmosphere(indoor-seating only), and friendly as family service make Esperia the perfect neighborhood joint, a great way to enjoy take-out or delivery - that's not Chinese or Pizza. Of course, they do have amazing calzones! It is a perfect, stand at the counter, and order your food kind of place -- casual with no sacrifice on the quality of the food!
My favorite dish is the grilled chicken gyro: succulent pieces of chicken enrobed in soft, chewy pita (not like the kind you buy in the store: it's fresh!), with a delicious sauce and lettuce. As everyone says, the garlic dressing is divine on the salad! Lots of veggie options make this great for vegetarians. And, save room for dessert, their homebaked custards, rice puddings and baklava are to die for!
Esperia is the kind of place you travel to when you're having a rough day and want comfort, or when you're wanting to combine everything you love in your life together - at once.
And, they have parking!
What more could you want?
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Mmmmmmmmmmm. The Greek salads are delicious. The appetizers are fantastic. The salad dressing makes me feel funny inside (in a good way). The people who own the place are so sweet and friendly. My boyfriend and I went in last night for dinner and saw a sign on the door saying they're going to be closed from the fourth of July through like the 15th and we were upset because we didn't want to have to wait so long for more delicious feta spread and salad dressing. We tried to give the guy crap about it and he said "Too much vacation?! We've been working seven days a week for six months! My wife is gonna kill me in my sleep!" so we laid off.
So the reasons this place is great: the food is wonderful, the prices are reasonable, and it is family-owned and really personal. It makes you feel like you're at home.
Can I get an OPA? I said OPA! And, I said it a few times whilst dining and responsibly enjoying their greek wine. My name is Greek and means honeybee. I don't know what Esperia means, but it sounds delicious to me. We started off with the feta spread (spicy and cool at the same time) this was served with a stack of warm pita bread. The dining companion got baked lamb with white rice with peas as his side dish. I got roasted veggies (similar to the kind you'd get in a stew). I also got their spinach rice. Everything was great and the service is counter service, but they deliver it to your table. Nice kid working the counter too. Friendly lady in a red sox cap delivered our meals. Beer and wine is available (Greek beer and wine), what more could you ask for? Check it out, you'll like it! OPA!
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This place has the best calzone I've ever had and the Greek salad is delicious (the dressing is super garlicky, but I love that).
The owner is a pleasure and we've never had a bad experience. It's fast becoming "the place" we order from when we're exhausted, the fridge is empty or we just don't feel like cooking.
Thanks to Yelp I'm going to try to Gyro tonight. Hooray!
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Esperia really surprised me! The food here is incredibly authentic, obviously home made... and most of all, fresh and delicious. If your idea of a "Gyro" is a giant rotating meat loaf (as is served at most places), then it would behoove you to high tail it to Esperia and see what a Gyro is really like. Not to mention the wealth of other delicious foods on offer here!!
Also, I'd like to take issue with a previous reviewer's comments about the Taramosalata. I found Esperia's rendition to be top notch -- delicate yet creamy, not too heavy... but still substantive. It is a fish roe salad... so there is a pleasantly fishy undertone to the dish. However, my only criticism would be that there's not ENOUGH roe, rather than too much. I suppose that there is indeed no accounting for taste.
Beyond the stellar food, the friendly and knowledgeable staff makes this place just an all around gem. The owner is around and always game for a chat, which for me is just another positive. Keep up the great work, Esperia!
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I love Esperia. On a trip to Chicago last year, I had some Gyros and really loved 'em - they were totally different than the "Gyros" I'd had back east. Back home, I tried lots of places, looking for that same experience, but every time all I got was frozen low quality mystery meat on a low quality pita with more salad than meat. I had totally given up, and then I found Esperia.
The food here is GREAT. The portions are huge, the salads are crispy, and everything is just plain good. There's very few places where I can have a meal for under $20 (forget $10, which is what a meal at Esperia generally costs me) that make me feel content and satisfied after.
The place is also family owned, and they are very friendly people. I really can't recommend this place more.
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I love this place. The food is great. I'd come here even if it weren't on my way home, even if I didn't live in Brighton. As it is, it is all I can do -not- to eat here every night. And I couldn't afford that because it costs $9-$10 a plate even at lunch time. It is so worth it though. The gyros are to die for, even the veggie ones are great. I don't care for the Greek salad--but the owner is open to substitutions, so I often get the spinach rice. I love the owners--they are so warm and welcoming. One time after I finished my plate the owner came over to take it and said "Now you can sit and relax!!" How sweet is that? This restaurant is one of the reasons I love Brighton.
Update: the pizza and calzones are really awesome! and they deliver!
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Very good and authentic. Havent been disappointed yet.
The food at this place is great and I've been coming in regularly since it opened. Their greek salad is amazing. I occasionally get it with grilled chicken in a wrap and its mouth watering. They offer a half panini with a soup or salad special and the panini's are juicy and nicely seasoned. One of my favorite items is the pita with spicy feta spread appetizer. It's addicting and I get it almost every time I go in. The family that runs this place is super cool. They remember you and make you feel like family. I tried my first gyro from them and it was absolutely amazing. They even make pizza too. The place has a nice dining area and the cases with food displayed always look great. They now serve beer and wine too.
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Brighton Center has a wealth of independently owned restaurants tucked away between the Dunkin Donuts and Kablooms of this world. Esperia is one of them. Thanks to Yelp, I discovered its existence and wandered over there today for lunch with a friend.
I've known a Greek or two in my time. The people running the place are definitely Greek, which is always a plus. I saw some older Greek ladies in the back enjoying a ladies lunch, which was a good sign.
I'm not all that familiar with Greek food, but my moussaka was delicious. It had layers of ground meat, eggplant, potatos, and some sort of creamy goodness thick layer on top, with excellent flavoring. I'm sure a large part of the deliciousness of the flavor was due to the high fat and cream content, but there was also just the right amount of spice (nutmeg?). My squash puree side was generous and delicious. The Greek salad was iceberg lettuce... but the dressing was tasty. All for just $9!
You order at the counter, but they bring the food to your table if you're eating in. Service was pleasant and the food arrived promptly.
All in all, this is a great causal join to grab a gyro, moussaka plate, kebab, or even pizza (what Greek joint doesn't have pizza?). I brought back a menu for my office, and will definitely be returning again.
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If you don't know how to pronounce some of these crazy Greek words, here's all you need to know:
Gyro = YEE-ROW
Tzatziki = ZA ZEE KEE
Either the service here is very accomadative, or the guy working here was so impressed with my ability to pronounce these words that he gave me other reccomendations. I'm not a lamb guy, so I wanted a gyro with beef in it instead, kind of like souvlaki but not a burger. Usually when you call for delivery the guys are impatient on the other end of the phone, but here he told me he could customize a beef kebab onto a pita roll with tzatiki sauce. Perfect!
Greek food is pretty much impossible to duplicate here in the U.S. since Greece has some of the freshest ingredients in the world, but Esperia is probably the best option in the Brighton area if you get the craving. Efharisto!
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This place is so so good...know how you love the spinach pie from one place and the gyros from another? Everything I've had here has been the best I've had. The baklava was perfect too, not super ridiculously sweet but just delicious. The family that runs the place is great, especially the dad, he's a really friendly guy.
Great place - the spanikopita rivals my Yaya's. It's a casual place but they take their food seriously. The owners are really friendly too, they'll probably stop by your table to make sure you're happy.
I have to agree with Mark C about the taramasalata - it was really, really good, but it could use a little more roe.
The hot sides were amazing - loved the Greek style roasted potatoes and the stewed string beans, mmm.
After frequenting Esperia as a regular customer for a few months, I decided to give their catering business a try. Having worked with a number of local caterers, both large and small, I can tell you 80% of the time there is something amiss. My events are typically in the evening so it is nearly impossible to fix the problems because most caterers offices are closed by 5 p.m. I had not one problem with my order from Esperia. They catered my 120 person event with no problem. Tim was extremely helpful in choosing the menu and working within my budget. The food looked great and the event attendees noticed. I received many compliments and plan to use their services again!
I just had a very satisfying lunch at Esperia. My gyro was all I could hope for, with fresh ingredients and a nice chewy pita. My bf had a steak and cheese sandwich that he said was the best he's ever had. And the guy eats a ton of steak sandwiches. The bread looked like a nice french loaf, rather than the usual roll that sandwiches are served on.
We ate inside and the restaurant's owner brought us our food. He confirmed that the place is family run and said that they reopened with the new renovations/menu about three months ago.
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Taramosalata is one of my very very totally and completely favorite things. So, I get a little excited when I see it on a menu. A little extremely excited. I have had it often at an amazing Turkish restaurant in Winter Park, FL, and now I don't know if I've been indoctrinated to a certain style, because I do not like the taramosalata at Esperia. It's a little too fishy tasting, not as rich and decadent. It's less creamy opaque and more translucent pink.
My spanakopita worked hard to redeem things, because it certainly looked wonderful and was an ample serving. The filo was not crisp, but the filling was pretty good.
A cross between a deli and a cafe atmosphere, Esperia has a really nice little space, and the food is right there for you to see and decide on. You can watch the meat roasting on an upright spit-thing, and it certainly did look delicious. And the guys behind the counter were friendly and helpful.
I'll have to back and try the hummus. That will be the deciding factor, because I am, right now, on the fence.
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This place recently reopened as Esperia. It's still run by the same family but the place has been revamped with nicer seating options and glass deli cases up by the counter to showcase the food. I used to come here when the place was still Brighton Center House of Pizza and it was pretty good then. It's AWESOME now that they have more Greek items on the menu. I just got an appetizer platter with hummus, skordalia(garlic spread), tzatziki, feta spread and some WARM pita bread- all for about $9 - perfect!
In addition to the Greek food they also still have pizza, subs, wraps, paninis, and rotisserie chicken.
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