San Diego, CA
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Three kitchens San Diego's food press has written about for the gyro itself, including one that carves pork the way Greek shops actually do. Sourced from San Diego Magazine, Times of San Diego, and two San Diego Reader restaurant reviews.
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Press picks, until locals rank their own Top 5s. Sourced from the local food press. As seen in San Diego Magazine, Times of San Diego, and San Diego Reader. Updated September 2026.
J-K's Greek Cafe · La Mesa
A 40-year-old La Mesa cafe that closed in 2024 and reopened in August 2025 under Liza Tsolirides and Brooke Saunders as a scratch kitchen. Gyros stayed on the menu alongside roasted chicken, moussaka, dolmas and souvlaki in pork, chicken, lamb and beef, and the pair added made-from-scratch garlic, tzatziki, spicy feta and beet dips. Times of San Diego reports the oregano arrives from Greece in Tsolirides' mother's suitcase twice a year. Order the gyro plate with a Greek salad.
Zgara Greek Grill · Bay Park
Ian Anderson used this Morena Boulevard counter shop to explain that the familiar ground beef and lamb rotisserie cone is an American invention, and that Greek shops carve pork. Zgara makes everything from scratch on family recipes rather than buying in processed meat, so the gyro platter has no beef or lamb in it at all. He compares the pork to carnitas and prefers it outright. Order the pork gyro, platter or sandwich.
Arslan's Gyros · Mission Beach
Arslan and his wife Vahida escaped Sarajevo with their children and now run a small Mission Beach patio under a sidewalk canopy that reads GYROS. Ed Bedford watched Arslan cook lamb on the spit, then finish the slices on a griddle with sauteed onions, garlic, salt, pepper, parsley and cumin, using lamb deliberately fattened for flavor. Order the lamb gyro in the giant split pita, add Vahida's spinach pie or a burek, and finish with Turkish coffee.