Chef Nikol Zarbalas Goes Big with Hellenic

Posted by estiator at 13 May, at 21 : 08 PM Print

COVER STORY

“Hands down, the best Greek food I’ve had.” That’s how television personality Guy Fieri raved about Chef Nikol Zarbalas’ cuisine after her 2022 appearance on his Food Network “Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives” show.

This year, Zarbalas finally got a restaurant space to match her cooking, ambitions, and personality. After a successful run in a smaller space, the ebullient chef unveiled Hellenic, her 5,200-square-foot room in Coral Springs, Florida, where the Philadelphia native has lived for 23 years.

“I designed the space myself, and I wanted it to feel like home,” says Zarbalas, who also wowed audiences in Fieri’s “Guy’s Grocery Games” in 2024 and is now filming a top-secret follow-up show with the TV chef. “The kitchen is the hub of the home, and our huge open kitchen is at the center of the restaurant. You can see us working from every corner—it’s all open space, with four communal tables. The rest of the tables are round, which encourages conversation.”

Zarbalas’ earthy style at Hellenic showcases “Greek dishes passed down through generations in our family,” she tells Estiator. “It’s not peasant food, but we take everyday ingredients and make something spectacular with them. Greek food is universal. It’s the Mediterranean diet, healthy, fresh, and clean. It’s ethnic food, but well-known.”

“Even in Hellenic’s soft open, there was a line around the block.”

Hellenic’s most popular item is “anything from our Greek street-food menu. You can build your own pita sandwich with a salad, or a beautiful platter with rice, vegetables, and a protein you pick. Braised lamb is the most popular.”

Zarbalas also embraces Southern accents in her cuisine. A signature of the kitchen: “Our take on shrimp and grits. We make our grits with parmesan sauce, which makes them thicker and richer. The shrimp is wrapped in kataifi [shredded phyllo]”.

Other menu highlights: Crispy Greek Heat Wings in a spicy house sauce; Greek Quesadilla with pita, mozzarella, diced tomatoes, pickled onions, a choice of protein and special Hellenic sauce, which was a Food Network hit; the Greek Dip of braised lamb, caramelized onion and cheese on crusty French bread with a sidecar of au jus; moussaka; and Smothered Chicken, a charbroiled breast over rice, dressed with a feta cream sauce.

At Hellenic’s wildly popular brunch, Zarbalas is offering hits like Chef’s Waffle Melt, a fried chicken sandwich on a waffle with bacon, egg, cheese, avocado, and Shrimp & Trahana—sauteed shrimp with trahana, loukaniko, peppers, onion, and tomatoes, and finished with crumbled feta. Desserts include bougatsa, from-scratch baklava, and cheesecake.

The chef-owner put just as much heart into Hellenic’s decor. “It’s not the usual blue-and-white. The space is in cream, with lots of wood tones and lots of needlepoint art. It’s not in-your-face Greek—there are no Parthenon or Acropolis images, or murals on the walls. The vibe is homey, grounded, and warm.” The restaurant features 187 seats.

Zarbalas comes from a restaurant-owning family in Philadelphia with strong roots in Greece. “Our family had diners and pizzerias. My parents are from the Peloponnese—my mother’s from Gastouni, on the coast, and my father is from Levidi, in the mountains. They were pen pals and met in Canada, where he had emigrated. She flew from Greece to Toronto to meet him, and they married.”

The couple moved to Albany, New York, where they opened their first diner, Zorba’s. After relocating to Philadelphia and owning a series of restaurants, they expanded to operate a range of food businesses. “My family ran the food carts and food trucks outside of UPenn [University of Pennsylvania Hospital] as well as the newsstand on the corner of 34th and Spruce for years. They were independent businesses outside of the hospital,” she says.

Zarbalas spent a decade in construction management, but with the family business in her blood, she took to flipping restaurants. After flipping “at least a dozen” spots, she opened her first Greek restaurant, Coral Springs’ Hellenic Republic at the Walk, in 2019.

Hellenic Republic closed in January 2025; before reopening, Zarbalas waited until she found a suitable spot to match her ambitions; Hellenic’s new home has ten times the capacity of the old location.

Hellenic Republic’s profile, and a loyal local following, led to Guy Fieri’s widely publicized 2022 visit. “He knew my background, and asked me why I didn’t flip Hellenic Republic. I told him that I raised my kids in that restaurant, much the way I worked alongside my parents as a little girl. It lets me keep an eye on my kids, it teaches them stability, and it offers lessons on communication and how to be social, not to mention the business side of things,” Zarbalas says.

Learning about their culture was equally important. “I didn’t want to lose that,” she says. “It’s our roots, where we come from. The kids know some Greek, especially when I’m yelling at them in Greek. My 16-year-old son, Dimitrios, who’s 6’3”, has worked with me since he was 8. He’s now my sous. I’ve brought in culinary-school graduates, and my son is the one who shows them the ropes. I was like, ‘Why am I hiring people from outside? Make Dimitrios your sous!’ He knows more than I learned in culinary school. He runs the kitchen when I’m out filming or managing our presence at the [annual] South Beach Food & Wine Festival.” Zarbalas has four other children.

Hellenic’s success means that Zarbalas has been able to thrive without third-party delivery services—a rarity in today’s restaurant industry. “We have a tremendous takeout business, and a lot of catering, but we’re popular enough that people come to our own site to order. Both orderGreekFood.com and orderhellenic.com are ours,” she says. The business has also grown without traditional advertising. “It’s all been social media. We’re in business through our client base and word of mouth. And even in Hellenic’s soft open, there was a line around the block.”

Her background in construction management also means Zarbalas has been able to dodge some of the brutal surprises that newcomers to the business often face. “If you’re opening a new restaurant, or any new business, check all of your systems, and then recheck them,” she advises. “Check your walk-ins. Check the hood. It’s worth spending a couple of hundred dollars on a service call to check the equipment, HVAC, and main service systems.”

Her recipes continue winning over an audiences far beyond Coral Springs. In April, the global culture site Time Out spotlighted Hellenic’s Spring Garden Arakas as one of “eight absolutely must-try recipes from the South’s top chefs.”

Next up for Zarbalas: a cookbook, based partly on recipes she explored on a three-week visit to Greece last year. “I’m hoping to have it out this summer,” she says. “The angle is comfort food, dishes that coat your belly.” The cookbook will likewise take inspiration from Zarbalas’ warmth and hospitality. “We are an open kitchen,” she says. “If you need a meal, we’ll feed you. We still have philoxenia inside us.”

Hellenic
10436 West Atlantic Boulevard, Coral Springs, FL | orderhellenic.com

HOME PAGE Cover Story, Michael Kaminer, Nikol Zarbalas