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Dorothea heads into Restaurant Week with upscale Greek fare
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Dorothea Kapnison was all jewels, fur and poise, a picture of classic roaring twenties refinement. Her family remembers her elegance through a namesake restaurant, Dorothea Fine Greek, in the Northeast Heights.
On Friday, April 4, through April 13, Dorothea will open its doors with a special menu for Restaurant Week, alongside other eateries across Albuquerque.
Dorothea opened in August, serving up modern Greek cuisine in a fine dining setting. It鈥檚 the project of Nicole Kapnison, a second-generation restaurateur, who opened the spot after her mother, Chris, decided to close Yanni鈥檚 in 2023. Yanni鈥檚 was a Nob Hill staple of thirty years, and one of many restaurants the Kapnison family owned, including Mykonos, the original El Patron, Nick & Jimmy鈥檚 and more.
鈥淚 love to carry on the legacy,鈥� Kapnison said. 鈥淭he reason I opened Dorothea is because I wanted to keep Greek fine dining going in Albuquerque after my mom decided to close Yanni鈥檚.鈥�
Kapnison hopes that Restaurant Week, and their special menu, will bring in new customers from Albuquerque鈥檚 culinary crowd.
Kapnison wanted to take things more traditional for restaurant week, she said.
At $66, Dorothea offers a four-course meal of Greek staples with modern twists, such as Tiropita, a sheep milk feta wrapped in filo dough with lavender. To start, Dorothea serves a traditional Greek salad of tomatoes, cucumbers, bell peppers, onions and red wine. As an entree, guests can choose between a rack of grilled lamb chops with feta whipped mashed potatoes or butterfly-cut Branzino, a flaky fish imported directly from the Mediterranean to your plate. For dessert, enjoy a Greek twist on the classic parfait, with labneh, a strained yogurt, fig jam, caramelized dates and walnuts, with a house granola crumble to top it all.
Guests can choose to have both entrees for an added fee, Kapnison said, and also make the meal for two for a $10 up-charge.
As a little girl, Kapnison spent hours in kitchens of her parent鈥檚 restaurants, she said, in fact, she practically grew up there. Now she has 11 years of experience running her own restaurants, but she鈥檚 still paying homage to those that came first.
Though Kapnison never met her grandmother, she grew up hearing of her welcoming aura and love of entertainment from her father, Nick . Nicole Kapnison named the restaurant Dorothea to honor both her grandmother and her father鈥檚 own legacy as a restaurateur.
鈥淲e very much cook in the way that she would have cooked,鈥� Kapnison said, 鈥渨ith real butter and real olive oil and no seed oils and fresh herbs and no chemicals 鈥� no ingredients you can鈥檛 pronounce.鈥�
Dorothea heads into Restaurant Week with upscale Greek fare
