Kyria Plays the Classics

Posted by estiator at 10 September, at 21 : 29 PM Print

Proudly traditional, Athens-born chef Maria Lachana turns Kyria into a new dining destination in Harrison, New York.

By Michael Kaminer

“Remarkably authentic.” That’s how Westchester magazine described the cooking of Chef Maria Lachana, who leads the kitchen at Kyria, an acclaimed newcomer in New York’s Westchester County.

Born and raised in Athens, Lachana is very much the real deal. After studying Culinary Arts at the Hellenic Public School of Tourism Education (OTEK) in Anavyssos, she won a scholarship to the prestigious Le Cordon Bleu in London. In 2018, she fulfilled a dream by emigrating to the U.S., where she and her brother, Argyris Lachana, operated their own restaurants, including Little Athens in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn.

The pandemic put an end to the restaurants, and to the partnership. But it also gave Lachana the spark to strike out on her own as a chef—with a very personal approach to the food of her family and her homeland.

“My approach is to stay traditional,” she says. “Modernizing doesn’t necessarily make it better, unless you want to be in a competition to really show something different. You can go to a Greek restaurant in the city, and they’ll serve sushi, or carpaccio, and desserts like tiramisu. That’s not Greek. Stay traditional and cook with love. Cooking with love is the best ingredient.”

At Kyria, the emphasis is on the classics, elevated with Lachana’s rich cultural sensibility. “My big difference is that I cook with olive oil only,” she says. “It’s the secret recipe to how we cook in Greece. The olive oil is from Sparti, with koroneiki olives. Even our fresh-cut fries are cooked in olive oil. It’s the top-quality oil, and my love for Greek food, that makes the difference.”

On Kyria’s menu: a gorgeous moussaka, lush pastitsio, soulful avgolemono, luscious grilled octopus, and earthy keftedakia, along with a delicate black sea bass, flaky red snapper, and indulgent shrimp Santorini with tomato sauce and feta. Desserts include classic baklava, karidopita, loukoumades, portokalopita, and galaktoboureko, along with crowd-pleasers like gelatos, chocolate lava cake and Greek yogurt with nuts and cherries.

Sticking with the classics has resonated with customers, who travel from across metro New York to sample Kyria’s artfully composed plates. It’s also won accolades for Lachana and her team, including sous-chef Dayne Brown. After giving it a positive review in January, Westchester magazine returned in July to name Kyria one of the region’s best new restaurants for 2026.

“The buzzy, elegant spot leans into the fundamentals of Greek cuisine… Chef Maria commands the kitchen with a menu anchored in deep family tradition, drawing heavily from her grandparents’ timeless recipes,” the magazine raved. It also praised Kyria’s continent-spanning wine list, with several top Greek choices, and its cocktail program, “including an Ouzo Spritz brightened with prosecco, lemon, and mint, and a Greek Old-Fashioned built on tsipouro, a robust spirit made from the residue left after grapes are pressed for winemaking.”

Lachana’s dedication to cooking does, in fact, take inspiration from her family. “My father was born and raised on the island of Thasos. My mother was born and raised in Athens, but that side of the family comes from Melisopetra, a little village in the Peloponnese,” she says. “My grandparents made everything from scratch, from phyllo dough and pasta to spinach pie and pitas. After a day of schoolwork, I always found it helped me let go of stress to cook alongside them, and I started making my own cakes and pitas in my spare time. I was always cooking.”

After a failed attempt to join the military—“You have to be over six feet tall, and I’m not,” she says, laughing—she decided “to turn my hobby and passion into something else. So I attended one of the best culinary schools in Greece.” At 24, she set off for London and Le Cordon Bleu; after graduating, the peripatetic chef cooked at high-ticket venues including London A-list hangout The Ivy and the lavish St. Regis hotel in Toronto. She followed that with gigs in Ottawa, Cyprus, and France.

Now, at Kyria, the chef continues to leave her mark. The room reflects Lachana’s style of classic simplicity, with white walls, wood beams, caramel hardwood floors, vintage Greek posters, and a huge mati overlooking the action. Along with day-to-day operations of the restaurant, she and her team oversee “plenty” of catering, private parties, and copious to-go orders. “We turn out large amounts of meatballs, souvlaki, baklava, spinach pie, calamari, mini pies…you name it. We cater anything from a barbecue to large events,” she says.

As Kyria’s profile rises, Lachana says she’s facing the challenges of a growing business. “My biggest challenge is finding the right people to work with me. I’m so lucky to have Dayne, my sous-chef, who is incredible. I don’t know what I would do without him. He’s learned so fast, and even though he’s from Jamaica, he has embraced Greek food so beautifully. He’s my right hand, and if I’m not in the restaurant, he’s there to make sure everything works perfectly.”

But Lachana says her real challenge is one that she sets for herself. “My personal challenge is to make every customer satisfied,” she says. “Why did they choose to come in? Why will they remember the food? I want to make sure everything is perfect.”

Does she have a signature dish after all these years in the kitchen?

“I have a signature phrase: ‘A good chef doesn’t have a signature recipe,’” she says with a laugh. “For an excellent chef, every dish is an exceptional dish.”

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