We knewtwo things about Gorgeous George's before we went for dinner, two things we'd gleaned from friends and acquaintances who'd been there and learned hard lessons on their own dimes.
Steven Miller
The envious eyes of the kid in the background betray a future Gorgeous George's regular.
Steven Miller
If you run out of bread, your tongue'll do just fine.
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Gorgeous George's Mediterranean Kitchen 7719 Greenwood Ave. N., 783-0116, gorgeousgeorges.com. Lunch 11 a.m.–2:30 p.m. Wed.–Sat.; dinner 5–9 p.m. nightly.
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One: Go early. Really early.
Two: Order the chicken. Don't be distracted by all the more interesting-looking things on the menu; just go on a weekend (the only time the chicken in question is served) and order George's Grandma's Chicken.
Every restaurant that generates word-of-mouth buzz and survives past that first tumultuous year (owner and chef George Rashed currently has three years and change in the rearview) has to have a hook—some unique plate, drink, chef, or interesting bit of bathroom graffiti—that will allow people to talk about it in the plain, specific language of the forever starving. At George's, the can't-miss suggestion, the one everyone mentions, is the chicken. And the mentioning goes something like this: "If you've got five minutes to live and George's is where you're at, order the chicken and spend four minutes making your peace with God. It's that good."
"It" is a whole hen, marinated and rubbed with zaater (a fancy word for oregano), sesame seed, oil, and herbs; roasted on the bone over charcoal and served whole; stuffed with an almost pesto-like mix of more sesame, more herbs, and more oregano ground into a thick paste; and buoyed with a side of rice, a side of roasted vegetables, and a sauce of garlic and yogurt. It's the kind of dish that I can completely understand being the touchstone for George's fans, the one they shamelessly shill for among their friends and dream about when they're away. I get the attraction, and did in fact love that damn chicken myself, sitting there and cutting the breast meat away from the ridge of bone, smelling the combined aroma of a dozen spices ("direct from the Holy Land," according to George), rising up, and then eating that first bite, tasting the charcoal and the marinade and the sharp slap of oregano and salt. It was marvelous. But the chicken is not what I'm going to remember. The chicken was not what I walked away raving about or what I dreamed of later that night.
No, that would be the hummus—the greatest I've ever had.
George's is small and cramped, the tables almost stacked on top of each other and the chair backs all touching. Sharing a low-slung building with Pete's Egg Nest on Greenwood Avenue, the restaurant consists of mostly two- and three-tops, pressed tightly against the cool walls to make the most of the available space, with a couple of larger tables running like hurdles across the center of the room or mashed into the corners. The maximum seating capacity is maybe 30. At 40, people would be sitting on each other's laps and sharing the same soup.
At 10 minutes after five, we weren't the first people there—or the 10th. Just a few minutes into service, the floor was already half-committed, and, with more on the way, the waitress/hostess/busser/steward—the one girl working the floor on a Saturday night—showed three of us to a small table in the corner (a deuce masquerading as a jury-rigged three-top) and let us squeeze past the large party who'd just snuck in ahead of us to claim the last of the large family tables. Which was just fine: I like a room that's alive and crowded, and more than three years in, George's still has the vibe of a shoestring comer two weeks out from its opening, slinging plates like every one of them might make or break the entire operation.
We got our menus, our water, and our wine. The water was spiked with fresh cucumber and lemon—one of those details that shows a restaurant fully in command of the little things. You've got to pay attention to the big things too, but so many restaurants (especially small ones, crowded and operating right on the edge of their theoretical tolerances) forget about things like the weight of the silver and the starch in the linen, the spots on the wineglasses and the wedges of cucumber giving a fresh and unexpected bite to the obligatory glass of water.
But not George's. I don't know George Rashed; I've never met the man and know nothing about him as a person. Yet something tells me he's a wicked kind of control freak—the kind of guy who can look out over a fully booked night with a second turn growing antsy on the sidewalk, see all the plates and the sides and the drinks and everything else that goes into the efficient and memorable feeding of 40 or a hundred strangers, and think to himself, "Shit, is there enough cucumber in the water pitchers?"
I love that kind of guy.
We knew we were getting the chicken, but that still left a whole lot of menu (and digestive real estate) to cover. And while George's board works within the somewhat restrictive Mediterranean/Middle Eastern canon (lots of lemon, lots of chickpeas, lots of proteins, simply grilled), it also offers everything from kafta kabobs, shish tawook (chicken kabobs), and halibut grilled and dressed simply in lemon and garlic (which is both a classic presentation and as ancient a dish as probably exists anywhere) to medallions of filet mignon, grilled and served with a scratch mushroom sauce.
