Carnegie Hospitality Is Unstoppable
Posted by estiator at 14 December, at 12 : 38 PM Print
COVER STORY
Blending tradition and innovation, Stathis Antonakopoulos builds restaurant brands for the future.
By Michael Kaminer
As this issue was going to press, news broke that Stathis Antonakopoulos’ Carnegie Hospitality was opening its first location in lower Manhattan—an 8,450-square-foot space that will span an entire city block at 200 Chambers Street. It’s an apt symbol of both Carnegie Hospitality’s unstoppable momentum and Antonakopoulos’ equally lofty ambitions.
“Where do I want to take this company? The sky is the limit,” says Antonakopoulos, whose empire now spans six fully opened locations, with seven more in the works. “We’re always planning for today and tomorrow, and we never forget to be present at the stores that are open.”
And he continues to innovate. Along with Carnegie Diner & Café, which has become one of New York’s most-loved casual restaurant brands, Antonakopoulos is set to launch Delos Greek Restaurant, “which is both diversifying Carnegie Hospitality and taking us back to our roots,” he says. “We’re going to make Greek food in a modern way, with a Michelin-starred executive chef. We’re going to feature a Greek wine program with a Greek sommelier who’s choosing unique bottles. And we’re going to feature recipes with techniques no one else is doing.”
Even more exciting, Antonakopoulos will be opening new locations with both restaurant concepts under one roof, including the Tribeca location. Delos will debut inside an iconic Diamond District location now partially occupied by Carnegie Diner. “When we found this flagship space, we knew the building would have been too much for one restaurant, so we came up with the idea of offering both Delos and Carnegie Diner, side by side,” he says. “The Carnegie Diner customer can come every day of the week. And that gives us a captive audience to try the upscale, Delos side once a week or once a month. We’ll have two entrances and two separate kitchens.”
Delos—named for “the uninhabited Greek island with big, ancient ruins and a rich ancient history as the birthplace of the god Apollo,” Antonakopoulos says—will bring “a phenomenal upscale experience, and high-end food, but with casual, affordable pricing.
To help conceive Delos’ menu, Antonakopoulos and business partner Peter Xenopoulos recruited Chef Giannis Parikos, whose stellar résumé includes kitchens in Athens, Brussels, and Paris. His mandate as executive chef: Rethink Greek cooking with modern techniques and provisions. “Chef Parikos’ menu will differentiate us from every other Greek restaurant in New York,” Antonakopoulos says. “I love Milos, Limani, and Avra, but the menus are identical. Ours stands out.”
A menu in progress, shared with Estiator, reveals some of Chef Parikos’ carefully calibrated offerings: slow-cooked beef orzo pasta with tomato sauce and Cretan graviera cheese; rooster braised slowly, served with Pappardelle pasta, fresh herbed tomato sauce, graviera cheese cream, and Parmesan cheese; kadaifi cheese pie cooked in a cast-iron pan with fig jam.
“Precision, consistency, and respect for every ingredient are values I carry with me. At Delos, these principles translate into dishes that combine refined techniques with a warm, Mediterranean spirit,” Chef Parikos tells Estiator. “Authenticity begins at the source. Delos carefully sources most of its ingredients directly from Greece: fresh fish arriving from the Aegean, lamb from Naxos, cheeses from various regions, and of course, extra-virgin olive oil—the cornerstone of Greek cuisine.”
Despoina Karapostolaki, the sommelier, is working with Chef Parikos and Antonakopoulos to find unique varietals and selections from smaller wineries to build a wine program where 90% of the bottles come from Greece.
Even the look and feel of Delos will distinguish it from other Greek restaurants in New York and beyond. Antonakopoulos tapped designers Enkela Malellari and Angela Antonakopoulos to create an environment that captured the Delos spirit. “We created everything from scratch, using both clean lines and subtle curves that evoke the Greek islands,” he says. “It’s how I envisioned the space, and it goes back to Delos itself. Apollo is the god of art and music. Artemis is the goddess of the hunt. Delos is the birthplace of those elements coming together. We’re bringing art, food, and hunting to New York City. Delos is also a block from the theater district. For us, being close to the arts, and giving to the arts, is what we’re doing. Delos is both about artistic choices and choosing ingredients for great food.”
As he grows Carnegie Hospitality’s brands, Antonakopoulos is also running a very different business than when he started with a single Carnegie Diner & Café. Antonakopoulos and Xenopoulos this year brought in a third partner, director of operations Labros Pyrgiotakis. The company now employs 400 people, soon to expand to 600 with the new openings. Fifteen people work in Carnegie Hospitality’s corporate office in Midtown, above the Diamond District location. A year ago, says Antonakopoulos, it was three.
“I care about every person who works with us,” he says. “People get married. They have kids, and grandchildren. These are amazing points in someone’s life. If you’re an owner and you don’t care about that stuff, it will come out in the work of your people. The biggest event of the last month for me was the birth of a second baby for one of my managers. It was huge for us. We went on her registry and bought all the stuff people hadn’t yet bought. It’s not about showing off, but giving back. You have to make sure people know how much you appreciate them.”
Antonakopoulos still starts his days by visiting all his restaurants, every morning. “I grab a coffee, talk to the opening team, and tell them, ‘Good morning, how are you, how can I make your life easier?’” he says. “Then I head to the office to deal with day-to-day operations and focus on growth plans for Carnegie Hospitality.”
Of course, there are also the inevitable challenges of doing business in one of the world’s most complicated cities in 2025. “There is uncertainty in the air, and the uncertainty of doing business here,” he says. “People always tell me, you have to look at your competition. I don’t. I just believe in doing what you do well. And I have people who help me do it well. Do it well, with heart and love and honesty, and in this city and this country, you’ll get the recognition that’s both financial and from the people’s love.”
Born in Athens, Antonakopoulos was raised in the Corinthian Gulf, where his family owned Alkion, a seasonal waterside restaurant and hotel. A busboy at 11 and waiter at 15, he became an accidental operator at 18, “when the team just didn’t show up one day,” he remembers. After fulfilling a mandatory 18-month army service, Antonakopoulos worked in hospitality around Athens. A lifelong desire to study in the U.S. became reality in 1999, when he seized an opportunity to study at New York’s Baruch College, earning a BA in marketing and a master’s studies in marketing and organizational management. Throughout, he worked as a waiter, “from Christos Steak House in Astoria to Uncle George’s,” now shuttered. “It was a great school for me. I came to understand the American type of service.”
He met Xenopoulos in 2007, after building and selling several successful restaurant concepts. Sensing the possibilities in working together, the two built restaurant-consulting and catering businesses before spotting “a great location for an upscale diner” at 57th Street and 7th Avenue in Manhattan, he recalls. Carnegie Hospitality was born.
Now that the pair have conquered Manhattan, they’re taking their vision outside state lines. A Carnegie Diner location will open in the Garden State Plaza Mall in Paramus, New Jersey, in 2027, Antonakopoulos reveals. “It’s a huge renovation, and we’re very excited to be part of it. We’ll be next door to Eataly, and Carnegie Diner will have a dominant presence in the mall’s new piazza,” he says. He and Xenopoulos also plan to start franchising Carnegie Diner. “It’s a key element for the next phase of growth,” Antonakopoulos says.
His title remains CEO, but his work touches every aspect of the restaurants’ success. “I’m still the owner and creator, and I still make dishes. I love to cook inside the kitchen even more than I used to. Right now, I only get to cook when I’m showing everyone how to make new dishes. Cooking is my psychotherapy. I try to do it at home every Sunday. Cooking for my family is when I create. It’s my high.”
Antonakopoulos lives in New Jersey with his wife, Hrisa Gatzoulis, the head of sustainability for New York developer Rudin, and children Elias, 11, and Demetra, 8. “We talk Greek to our kids all the time, and they go to the Greek school in Tenafly every Saturday,” he says. “It’s very important for us. We’re also members of a few Greek churches. When they ask you to be a member, we cannot say no.”
Between their demanding careers, the couple loves to travel, with Antonakopoulos drawing inspiration from every new journey. “I can’t shut off the inspiration. I’ll take a picture or send a text to myself when I see or taste something amazing. And it’s not just food. We just went to Barcelona for our 20th wedding anniversary, and art is everywhere. You can get inspired by a church, beautiful windows, brilliant colors. And Barcelona did have an amazing food scene,” he says.
His travels, along with his roots, also helped inspire Delos. “In my head, Delos was always part of what I would do,” he says. “Every time I ate a recipe I liked, I put it on my to-do list, and posted it in a special folder. When the time came for Delos, the menu came together beautifully.”
The Empire Grows
Carnegie Diner locations
• 205 West 57th Street, New York City
• 700 Plaza Drive, Secaucus, NJ
• 828 8th Avenue, New York City
• 501 Maple Avenue, Vienna VA
• 1262 Broadway (inside the Martinique Hotel), New York City
• 1185 6th Avenue, New York City
In development
• 711 7th Avenue (inside the Voco Hotel), New York City
• 445 Albee Square (inside CityPoint), Brooklyn, NY
• 33 Maiden Lane, New York City
• JFK Airport Terminal 1, Queens, NY
• 200 Chambers Street, New York City
• Garden State Plaza Mall, Paramus, NJ
Delos Greek Restaurant locations set to open
• 1185 6th Avenue, New York City
• 200 Chambers Street, New York City
Voco Roofbar set to open
• 711 7th Avenue (inside the Voco Hotel), New York City
