Kipos - Raleigh - LocalWiki

Kipos Greek Taverna
431 W Franklin St., Chapel Hill, NC 27516
(919) 425-0760

Kipos, located on Chapel Hill’s busy Franklin Street, opened in Spring 2013. It’s the brainchild of fruitful restaurateur Giorgio Bakatsias. (Bakatsias is also responsible for Bin 54 and Vin Rouge in the Triangle area.) Bakatsias chose the name Kipos, meaning garden in Greek, to honor his parents. “This is what we want to share with you at Kipos: cooking from the memory of my heart,” Bakatsias says on the Kipos website.

Carl Zimmerman is the head baker at Kipos. Zimmerman started with Georgio’s Hospitality Group (GHG) as a pastry chef in 2010. He spent a year with Guglhupf, and then returned to GHG as a sous chef at Bin 54. Bakatsias’ sister Olga and childhood friend George Xiarchos are also chefs at the restaurant.

EXPERIENCE
Kipos serves lunch, dinner, late-night, and Sunday brunch and offers fresh baked breads, pastries, and Greek yogurts and coffee in its all-day bakery. Kipos boasts three alfresco dining gardens, a private room, and bar with craft mixology. The majority of the menu items are Greek classics, such as mousaka, lamb youvetsi, and baklava.

The main dining room is designed to look like a Greek taverna—large and open with glass-jar pendant lights and bright shelving. On many nights, belly dancers circle the room, while live music plays.

MENU
For the menu Bakatsias returned to his Greek roots. The Kipos menus— brunch, lunch, dinner, dessert, wine, and take home lists—are extensive and truly Greek. The menus feature a mix of hot and cold Mezedes (small plates) and mezes (spreads). Frequent on the menu are items like phyllo pies; rotisserie lamb, pork, chicken; and whole-roasted fish. Specials often include braised pork shank, lamb meatballs, and eight-hour braised wild rabbit. Kipos also offers a variety of vegetarian options. The bakery features an assortment of breads—rustic white, ciabatta, honey oatmeal wheat—and just as many pastries.