Utica, NYMediterranean

Mohawk Valley Living's Carrie Bryne Putelo stopped at Symeon's Greek Restaurant on her Mediterranean tour, and Symeon sat down for the whole lunch. She ordered the Greek chicken salad with Thracian chicken, artichokes and roasted peppers, called the house Greek dressing out of this world, and singled out the pita bread croutons. Two appetizers went to the table, melitzanes tiganites, eggplant fried twice, and kalamari tiganita in the house batter. Order the twice-fried eggplant and a souvlaki platter.

A fast-casual spin-off of the Zeina family's downtown Lebanese restaurant, opened in New Hartford in March 2021 by Elias Zeina. The Rome Sentinel covered its fifth anniversary, and the paper's global-cuisine series named it again. The kitchen builds chicken and steak shawarma into bowls and wraps, with lamb meatballs, falafel, and fresh saj bread to round out an order.

A New Hartford Mediterranean room owned by Mirna and Louie Zeina, part of the same Lebanese family behind Zeina's Cafe and Lafa. A Rome Sentinel feature on Utica's Lebanese community named it among the area's well-known establishments. The menu runs across Lebanese and Greek plates, so build an order around hummus, grape leaves, and grilled kebabs.

The Phoenician is a family-run Lebanese restaurant on French Road in New Hartford, named in local coverage of Utica's Lebanese food traditions and in a recent Mediterranean dining tour. The room has long been known for a lunch buffet, but the cooking reaches beyond it: chicken kebabs, hummus, falafel and stuffed grape leaves all make a table-sized spread. Start with the mezze and add kebabs.