“We started with taverna,” Kananis,
42, told me over the phone after my
visits, “because that’s where the Greeks
go for the best food. But tavernas classically have a more luncheonette feel,
whether in Greece or here. Paper tablecloths, no decent glassware or silverware. We cook our food with the TLC
of tavernas in Greece, but the dining
experience is more of an estiatorio.”
That is true. In addition to off-white
linen tablecloths and blonde wood
chairs with upholstered seats, Skara has
rough-hewn stone columns, a Greek key
design in the flooring, fine tableware,
and that tiled mural of Mykonos and
Santorini, painted by the owner of Art
Devons, the framing shop next door.
“What we’re cooking is the real
Greek food that Greeks eat,” Kananis
said. In Greece, “a place wouldn’t last
a week serving reheated moussaka cut
from a lasagna pan, or sad pink toma-
toes or yesterday’s shrimp. Greeks go to
the hole-in-the-wall on the side street,
where Yia-Yia [Grandma] or Uncle Yian-
nis is cooking the century-old recipes.”
Kananis’s parents emigrated from
Athens just before he was born in 1972. He
grew up in Jersey City and Bayonne, “a
Jersey boy at school, a Greek kid at home,
where the stove was busier than the TV.”
He worked “front of the house in mom-
and-pops” and managed Ruth’s Chris Steak
Houses in Weehawken, Parsippany and
Tarrytown, New York. “Then I dabbled in
tech startups for a while,” he related. “But
restaurants are my true calling.”
In November 2014, Kananis was about
to move to Greece for a few years when
Angelopolos called. His old friend was
planning to launch a Greek restaurant in
Caldwell, but his partner had suddenly
dropped out. He convinced Kananis to
step in, “nonrefundable airline ticket and
all,” Kananis says with a chuckle.
Angelopolos, 54, Skara’s chef, grew
up in Athens and cooked all over the
Greek capital, including “the highest
volume restaurant in the city, inside the
central food market,” he told me. That
no-frills eatery, intended for the mar-
ket’s fishermen, farmers and purveyors,
“was one of the few restaurants allowed
to stay open all night—so the disco
people would come here after the clubs.”
Angelopolos settled in New Jersey in
1986, founded a house-painting company
and did some catering. “I’m happiest in the
kitchen,” he said. Every morning, he makes
the rounds of several fish and produce mar-
kets. “I buy only what looks beautiful.”
Angelopolos makes every menu item
in-house, except for the pita and lougan-
iko sausage, both imported from Greece.
(The texture of the Greek pita, served
toasted, makes the domestic stuff seem
like Wonder Bread). Also not made in
house is the beef “gyro cone.”
TIME-TESTED TASTES:
Opposite page: moussaka; chef/co-owner
Manos Angelopolos
bastes a bronzino on
the skara, a charcoal
grill reaching temperatures of about 1,200
degrees. This page,
from top left: a tray of
multigrain rolls made
from Angelopolos’s
great-grandmother’s
recipe; the leg of
lamb souvlaki platter;
manager/co-owner
John Kananis; horia-tiki salata, a salad
made with Greek feta.
