No Aegean turquoise accents here. Rather, Yiayia’s offers a fresh take on Greek design where dark green is the operative accent color. On a recent tour of the restaurant with Evy Pappas, chief design officer for Pappas Restaurants, she decoded the thinking behind this unexpected approach.
“My vision on restaurant design: So many restaurants are beautiful, the lines are clean and the detail is amazing,” she says. “But there is no personality. I think ‘How do we make this place fun and funky?’ Yes, we want clean lines. We want beauty. But we want personality and character.”
That personality is delivered on entry where a massive olive tree, the national tree of Greece, welcomes diners.