Greektown Detroit Restaurants: Gyros and Pastry

Greektown Detroit restaurants cluster on Monroe Street, where family pastry shops sell trays of sweets, long-running grills are known for homemade gyros and newer Greek kitchens serve contemporary plates. Start with a gyro, finish with baklava and rate each dish as you go.

This page covers the kinds of places on Monroe Street: grills, modern Greek kitchens and pastry shops. It explains what to order at each, how to compare a gyro fairly and how to plan an evening. Hours change, so check before you go.

Which Greektown Detroit restaurants should you try first?

Begin on Monroe Street, the spine of the neighborhood. A long-running grill is the old-timer, and a newer Greek kitchen has a modern dining room and contemporary Greek plates. A pastry shop on the same street handles dessert.

Walk the block once before you sit down. The places are close enough that you can eat a gyro at one, share a plate at another and finish with a pastry, which makes Greektown an easy evening for a group that cannot agree on one menu.

Where can you get Detroit gyros in Greektown?

The old-timer grills are the answer for homemade gyros, and their menus list kebabs, saganaki and salads. Gyros and moussaka are the classic examples of the neighborhood's Greek cooking.

The newer kitchens take a different route, with a pork gyro or a lamb burger on the menu and contemporary Greek cooking. If you order a gyro at each, you have a fair comparison of old and new.

When you rate a gyro, look at the bread, how the meat was carved, the sauce and whether it arrived hot. Those four notes tell the next person more than a star count does.

Where can you get Greektown pastry on Monroe Street?

Greektown pastry shops sell a long list of pastries along with specialty coffees, including baklava, custard rolls and walnut rolls among their Greek honey pastries.

A pastry shop is the easiest stop to fit in. Order one syrupy pastry and one that is not sweet, such as a custard roll, and note which you would order again. Ask what the staff sell most, since a house favorite is a good place to start. Rate each pastry by name and keep a Greektown list that a visiting friend can follow in one evening.

What is Greek food in Detroit like beyond gyros?

Greektown menus lean on a short list of classics. Moussaka, a baked dish of eggplant and meat sauce, and saganaki, fried cheese that is often lit at the table, appear on the menus of the neighborhood's long-running kitchens. Salads, kebabs and stuffed grape leaves round out a shared table.

If you are cooking for a mixed group, order a few plates to share rather than one each. Greek food suits sharing, and a vegetarian can build a meal from salads, cheese and vegetable dishes without asking for a special order. Ask the server about allergies directly, as menus change.

How do you plan a Greektown meal?

Eat early on a weekend, since the street fills before games and shows downtown. Park once and walk, because the places on Monroe Street are within sight of each other. A weekday lunch is quieter, and a late pastry stop works on almost any evening.

A simple order for two is one gyro each, one shared plate and one pastry to take away. If the weather is poor, the pastry shop is the easiest to treat as a stop on the way to something else. Note the day and time in your rating, since a Friday night and a Tuesday lunch feel very different.

Dinner on Monroe Street often ends with dessert, so save room. A good habit is to order a shared plate of cold dips and bread first, then a grill plate to split, and keep the pastry for the walk to the car. If you are celebrating, ask the staff about a table in a quieter corner, and mention it when you book.

How do you track Greektown food with Mosey?

Rate the dish, not only the place. Mosey needs only the place and stars; after that you can name the gyro or the baklava, add tags such as Group Dining, Great Value or Bakery, and attach a photo. A rating that reads "pork gyro, warm bread, extra sauce on the side" is more useful than a score.

Build a list called Greektown on Monroe Street with one gyro, one shared plate and one pastry, then send the invite link to a friend so they can add their own picks. Follow friends to see what they rated and saved, and tag the people you ate with so each can add their own rating of the same meal. The lists page covers sharing.

What else should you read?

For the rest of the city, the Corktown guide covers a different part of town, the Eastern Market and coney island guide goes deeper on the market and the chili dog, the Detroit-style pizza guide explains the square pie and the Southwest Detroit guide covers Mexicantown. See the Detroit page, the Michigan page and the US food guides.

On your next Greektown walk, open the Mosey app, rate each dish by name and keep your favorite Monroe Street stops in a list.