Anasma Greek Eatery, Trentham
Anasma Greek Eatery opened at the Trentham Estate in Staffordshire barely two months ago. But it’s already a roaring success. I went along last weekend and soon discovered why. Affordable mezze plus souvlaki, gyros and lots more tasty Greek dishes, both familiar and traditional family recipes, served by friendly, efficient staff at the riverside location.
ANASMA
I first came across Anasma in 2020. Back then, Marianna Anastasiou (switch around the beginning of her first and second names and you get Anasma) had branched out from baking for friends into selling at weekend markets. I’d picked up a couple of her cheesy Greek pastries at the September Sunday Supplement artisan market in Leek and loved them. So, I was very pleased when I heard a little over a year later that Marianna was opening a bakery in Newcastle-under-Lyme.
If anything, the quality of produce from Anasma Greek Bakery seemed even better. Savoury pastries like spinach and feta, minced beef, or chicken and cheese, were all delightful. I think the sweet ones were particularly exquisite though. White chocolate and pistachio baklava were crunchy but also juicy with sweet syrup. Pourekia anari, soft, delicate pastry pillows, were filled with sweet ricotta subtly flavoured with cinnamon and rose.
Alongside the baked goods the shop, with its few tables, offered hot food specials like moussaka, pastitsio, and the always popular gyros. And now even more people can enjoy what Anasma has to offer. Because in April this year, they opened Anasma Greek Eatery, a fully-fledged restaurant with outdoor terrace.
Not bad going for someone who only moved to Staffordshire from Cyprus in 2015.
ANASMA GREEK EATERY
It was a hot, early summer night when partner ID and I arrived at the Trentham Estate, just to the south of Stoke-on-Trent. Famous for its gardens as well as the brilliant Monkey Forest, the grounds include a shopping village with a host of places to eat and drink. I’d booked for six-thirty so the restaurant itself was still quite quiet. However, there were lots of people outside on the riverside terrace, and inside soon started to fill up too.
The décor is attractively simple with light painted wood. The most striking feature though is the long, glass cabinet full of tempting baklava, pastries, cakes and puddings to eat in or take home.
From the shortish wine list of exclusively Greek wines, we shared a carafe of the pleasant house red (500ml, £11). There was also a choice of four Greek beers (£3.80 each), plus coffee, tea and soft drinks.
ANASMA GREEK EATERY MENUS
The main food menu (there are also wonderful-sounding breakfasts) is split into three categories.
Although the first is called Sides Menu, maybe think of it as a combination of starters and small plates. Any of them would be suitable as a first course or you can pick several to share and eat mezze style. Cold starters included vine leaves (£4), Greek salad (£6/£12), and tzatziki or taramosolata at £4.95 each. Hot dishes like grilled halloumi, fried courgettes, or feta phyllo with honey were £3 – £4. You can also get fries loaded with feta, chicken and/or pork (£4.50 – £9.50).
Then we have the section simply headed Menu. This has things like gyros and souvlaki (chicken, pork or veggie, in a wrap for £9.90 or a larger portion on a plate for £16.90), halloumi wrap (£8.90), traditional Cypriot sausages (£17.50), lamb chops (£17.70), and a giant mixed grill that looked like it would easily feed two people (£27). Virtually all of these come with pita bread, salad, fries, and one or two dips like tzatziki or honey mustard.
The Chef’s Special section of the menu has what Anasma Greek Eatery calls ‘home-cooked meals’. These appear to be the traditional family recipes that Anasma want to introduce more of us to. Here you’ll find the pastitsio (£15.50) and moussaka (£17.50) popular from their bakery, plus dishes like stifado beef stew (£18.50). pork and beef meatballs in tomato sauce (£12.50), battered fried cod with skordalia potato (£16.50), and gigantes (£13.70), a vegan bean dish.
MEZZE STARTER
For our starter, ID and I decided to create our own mezze by sharing four dishes from the Sides menu. These were: hummus, melintzanosalata (both £4.95), loukaniko (£3), and tyrokroketes (£4). Unless you’re particularly knowledgeable about Greek food I guess that, like me, all of them except hummus will be new to you. But what great finds they were!
HUMMUS
Who doesn’t love a classic hummus? Given the simplicity of the basic ingredients (chickpeas, tahini, lemon, maybe garlic), I’m always surprised at just how good this dip can be. And the one at Anasma Greek Eatery was a perfect example of it.
Not too smooth, and with that combination of creaminess and hint of earthiness from the pulses and sesame seeds that makes it so good.
MELINTZANOSALATA
Melintzanosalata translates as ‘aubergine salad’ and that’s exactly how it was described on the menu. Which isn’t a lot to go on. But, cooked properly (no underdone spongey lumps, please), ID and I both love aubergine so we gave it a go anyway. And we couldn’t have been happier with it.
A common way to prepare aubergine is to cook it whole, directly over flame or on a griddle. Even after the blackened skin is then pulled away, you’re left with a smoky flavour that suits the blandish aubergine with its pleasant hint of bitterness. Anasma’s melintzanosalata had that wonderful smokiness I look for in an aubergine dish, complete with tiny flecks of the skin. Balancing its natural bitterness was sweetness from roasted red peppers. As well as the lovely flavour, these gave the salad a lightly golden-yellow colour.
LOUKANIKO
I love sausages of all kinds. So when I saw on the menu Loukaniko, a firm, meaty Greek sausage, I just had to try it. You might think a simple, unadorned, single sausage on a plate couldn’t possibly look appetizing. But Anasma Greek Eatery would prove you wrong. Split open, then charred so the grill marks made a dark crisscross pattern against the deep pink meat, I’d defy anyone to resist tucking in to this beauty.
As I hope you can see from my photo, the loukaniko was very juicy. I loved the robust texture and little nuggets of tasty fat. There was a subtle spicing in there (fennel, perhaps?) which enhanced the natural meaty flavour rather than overwhelmed it.
TYROKROKETES
Tyrokroketes are cheese croquettes and here they came as half a dozen, crispy coated, golden fried balls. I’m sorry to say I didn’t take a photo of their contrasting soft and melting insides. Because we were too busy scoffing them 🤭. I don’t know what variety or combination of cheeses were in there but, suffice to say, it was delicious!
Altogether, our mezze came to £16.90. And that included the big platter of good quality Greek pita bread at no extra charge.
That’s £8.45 per person for a lot of lovely food. For people less greedy than us, it could stretch to three or even four people. An absolute bargain, I think.
MAIN COURSES
ID and I chose our main courses from different parts of the menu. I went home-style with a Chef’s Special and ID selected something from the Menu of gyros, souvlaki, wraps, etc.
KLEFTIKO
For my main, I went for a dish I have eaten before, albeit cooked by me. Kleftiko is said to take its name from the Klephts or Kleftes who fought Ottoman rule in Greece. The story goes that, hiding in the mountains, they’d steal sheep and cook them in underground pits so the smoke and aroma wouldn’t be detected. As cooking in a pit would be a bit of a bind for most of us, these days kleftiko is made by marinating then slow-cooking lamb in a paper parcel. This keeps in all the flavour and juices. It’s common to cook potatoes and other vegetables in with the lamb so they take up all the deliciousness too.
I have a recipe for kleftiko on this blog. But if you want to see it, you’ll have to search for it. Because, after tasting Anasma’s glorious version, there’s no way I’d have the cheek to put my lowly effort in the same category.
All the dishes I’d seen coming out of the kitchen looked like very generous portions. My kleftiko, presented on a large metal platter, was no different. I think the cut of lamb, judging by the bone, was part of a shank. To one side was a heap of fresh salad which you can dress yourself with the oil and vinegar on the table. On the other were big wedges of skin-on, herby potato. To squeeze over was a hunk of lemon, one of the traditional flavourings for kleftiko.
I prepared to cut into the lamb, but found it was so soft I could just prise it apart with knife and fork. To get this degree of tenderness, it had obviously been cooked for a considerable time. Yet it was still lightly pink and wonderfully juicy. The lamb itself had good rich flavour, easily a match for the now concentrated taste of the sweetish onions and peppers that had been cooked with it.
If this is what Greek home cooking is like, deceptively simple but full of flavour, let’s have more of it here in Britain please.
SOUVLAKI
ID chose Souvlaki for his main course. If you don’t already know, souvlaki is a kebab of chunks of meat, grilled on a skewer. This is similar to shish kebabs that Britain is probably more familiar with. Likewise, Greek gyros are the equivalent of doner kebab where, made properly, slivers of meat are layered on an upright, rotating spit. As mentioned above, at Anasma Greek Eatery you can get souvlaki and gyros either in a wrap or served as a larger portion on a plate.
ID went for souvlaki served on a plate (£16.90). Eaten like this, you get two skewers of meat (as opposed to one skewer in the wraps) of chicken or pork. He chose one of each. As well as the meat, it came with pita, Greek side salad (tomatoes, cucumber, olives, onion, feta) and good skin-on chips.
He also had a choice of three dips: yogurt-based tzatziki, honey mustard, or tyrokafteri. Quite sensibly, he went for tyrokafteri as it was new to both of us. As we’d sussed from the croquettes in our mezze, tyro means cheese. And tyrokafteri turned out to be a lovely creamy but sharp cheese dip with what looked like little bits of light green, mild chilli in it.
Quite plainly seasoned, both the chunks of chicken and the pork were perfectly cooked, juicy and tender. In a simple, honest dish like this, there’s really no place to hide for inferior ingredients or bad cooking. But Anasma met the challenge perfectly.
DESSERTS
The dessert menu included around half a dozen flavours of mousse cake (£5.80 each), chocolate eclairs (£5), baklava (4 pieces for £4.60). But rather than choosing from the card, I think you’d be wise to peruse that big, inviting glass cabinet. The range available was incredible. And don’t forget, if you’re already full from those big portions, you can take some home instead. As well as baklava and cakes, I spotted cookies, wafers, petit fours, and kataifi pastries,
For my dessert I chose Kok, a sponge cake with vanilla cream (£6.50). I’d seen them on display and thought the large, round cake topped with a shiny chocolate glaze looked elegantly attractive. I’d also assumed that I’d get just a slice of it. But no. The whole thing was put in front of me!
The simple sponge was beautifully light, and the cream had a pleasing, subtle taste of vanilla. The chocolate topping was rich without being cloying. In short, exactly what I was hoping for. After what I’d already eaten though, I could only manage half. But there was no way I was leaving any behind. A staff member was happy to box it up for me and it tasted just as good the next day.
ID went for the orange and chocolate mousse cake (£5.80) and loved it. Inside the striking orange exterior were layers of cake and two types of light, fluffy mousse. While not as large as my dessert, it was still a very generous size. ID happily ate it all up anyway.
ANASMA GREEK EATERY: HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
After loving Anasma’s food from street markets and their Newcastle-under-Lyme shop, it’s clear there is a very talented baker at work. And one that has gained lots of loyal customers and high praise. But that’s not the same as running a restaurant, and a very busy one at that.
In the first few days, it seems that Anasma Greek Eatery couldn’t quite cope with the sheer number of customers, had to rethink a few practical things, and re-look at their menu. They also had some bad luck with software problems.
But they obviously took all that on board and learnt from it. Because on my visit everything ran like clockwork. The staff were friendly and efficient, working hard on what became a hot and busy night. All the customers seemed to be enjoying themselves and I couldn’t fault anything we ate. And it’s always a good sign when, even before we’ve left, we are already talking about what we might eat next time or when we can try the breakfast menu.
Our food bill, and we’d ordered A LOT, came to £68.60. Considering that I had the second most expensive main course, and we’d effectively had four starters, I think a little over £34 a head is pretty good value these days.
Whether you want to enjoy a mezze-style feast, have simple but perfect street food like souvlaki and gyros with all the fixings, or try a traditional Greek family recipe, I think you’ll find lots to love at Anasma Greek Eatery.
Highly recommended.
PRICES AND MENU CORRECT AT TIME OF WRITING
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