There are hidden treasures around every corner in this amazing city. I was walking down 8th Avenue in Hell’s Kitchen and stumbled across Poseidon Bakery.
The flaky filo in the window is what attracted me inside. It looked like my mom’s filo. Frail, dainty, buttery— not the stuff you eat in most stores.
I was greeted by the matriarch of the family-run business— A wonderful woman named Lilian.
“Same recipe for 95 years,” she told me as I ordered the Spanakopita.
Almost a century— that’s how long Poseidon Bakery has been feeding New Yorkers traditional Greek desserts and pies.
Almost a century of the exact same recipes that were brought from the old country by the founder, Demetrios Anagnostou, a baker from Kerkyra who emigrated to America in the early 1900s.
Lilian, who is a 3rd generation baker to run Poseidon also told me that she and her sons— the fourth generation in the family business— prepare their own filo daily.
Nothing is processed by a machine, she told me. It’s all made by hand.
She also told me what life was like in Hell’s Kitchen in the 1960s and 70s. There were dozens of Greek businesses up and down the avenue and thousands of Greeks lived and worked in the area.
On weekends, she said, you had a dozen different bouzouki joints to choose from— just in Hell’s Kitchen alone.
It was a different era then, she explained and it lasted until the 1970s when there was a mass exodus for Astoria.
But truth be told— I haven’t tasted a spanakopita like this anywhere— not even in Astoria.
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3 comments
My mom used to take me there in the ’70’s as a kid to pick up ~25 Vasilopita to give to non-Greek family friends. The best place in NY.
I went there often as a child (1960’s) as my father is Greek and both his and my mother’s families lived in the neighborhood. I went back for a visit this year and Lili, the owner, remembered my father’s uncle who had been a baker there as well as his daughters (my father’s cousins) who worked there. I told her that my father and his family remembered when the original bakery stood where the Port Authority Building is now. She pointed to the photo of yiayia and pappou on the wall and asked if I remembered them. Of course, I recognized them immediately. Lili also told us that the family had the foresight to purchase the current building which enabled them to stay in the neighborhood while other small businesses were forced out by rising rents.
I am related to the original owner. He was my father’s cousin. After I came to New Yor I visited the dhop frequently. I watched Micheal make the fiilo dough and the stretch out on the table until it was very thin. And yes, it is the best spanicopita that you can buy!