Ellington

Portofino’s Greek and Italian Restaurant is incorporating Greek Night entrées and appetizers into the regular menu, using recipes created by the restaurant’s creative cook and co-owner Angelo Douvris.

“Our new menus are here so the now popular Greek dishes are available,” says co-owner Dimitris Agrafiotis. “There will be no more Greek Nights, because every night is Greek Night now.”

The new menu features both the restaurant’s popular Italian recipes and a wide selection of Greek-inspired entrées and appetizers that have been tasted and approved by customers throughout the last few years. Favorites include the Agrafiotis’ Greek Bruschetta with Greek tomatoes marinated in olive oil, vinegar, salt and pepper and tossed with feta cheese. Mousaka is a serving of eggplant layered with potatoes, ground beef and cheese topped with béchamel sauce and served with peas.

The restaurant’s pastitsio is a serving of a baked macaroni mixed with ground beef and cheese topped with béchamel sauce and served with peas. Also on the Greek menu are dolmades with rice and ground beef wrapped in grape vine leaves, topped with butter lemon sauce and served with peas. Spanakopita is a Greek spinach pie made using layers of phyllo dough, fresh spinach and feta cheese. Angelo’s Special, a tender braised beef cooked all day in a red sauce, is served over rice with the vegetable of the day.

Agrafiotis says the restaurant’s success lies with its founder, Angelo Douvris.

“Even after 50 years of being in the restaurant business, every week he’ll come to me with a new idea,” Agrafiotis says. “He was innovative here, bringing gyro on a cone and introducing it to the Health Department, because they had never seen it.”

As a 20-year-old immigrant looking for a better future, Douvris moved from Sparta, Greece to America, where he quickly learned he had a head for business. Douvris opened his first restaurant, New Dolphin, in 1964 in Chicago. He owned 16 ventures before coming to Chattanooga.

“When you’re in business you lose and you gain,” Douvris says. “I lost and I gained, but I gained more than I lost — it’s about more than just money.”

Douvris moved south to Chattanooga to be close to his wife’s family and to retire. However, nearly two decades ago when he passed the empty space on the corner of Ringgold and North Mack Smith Road he decided he liked the location and opened a pizza restaurant. Three renovations and 15 menus later, it grew into Portofino’s Greek and Italian Restaurant, which boasts an engaging Mediterranean menu.

“The restaurant is a family event, his biggest enjoyment is when he cooks something and his granddaughters eat it — that’s a lot of fun,” Agrafiotis says.

Not only does Douvris create new recipes, he is also a beloved presence in the restaurant. Every Greek Night, now held once a month with live music, Douvris dances a Greek dance, which Agrafiotis tapes and posts on Facebook. The Grecian Echoes, a Greek band from Atlanta, will perform Oct. 29 for the next Greek Night, accompanied by belly dancing performances by Jillanna and the Desert Sirens. Reservations are required for the evening.

“We’re pretty much sold out every month for these performances,” Agrafiotis says. “The music starts out really mellow and as the night progresses it gets more energetic.

LOCATION: 6407 Ringgold Road.

PHONE: 499-9696.

HOURS: Sunday through Thursday from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. and Friday and Saturday from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m