Food - Drink
The Debated History Of The Gyro
By NATASHA BAILEY
Gyro is a sandwich composed of pita bread with tzatziki, a spiced cucumber and yogurt-based sauce, and gyro meat, which is traditionally lamb or a combo of lamb and beef. Gyro meat is usually seasoned with a ton of spices and herbs and rotated on a spit, and naturally, many areas want to lay claim to this delicious dish.
Though gyro is a Greek dish, many candidates claim to have originated the wildly popular Greek-American version of gyro. Chris Tomaras, founder of Kronos Foods, claims to have been the first to bring the gyro from Greece to Chicago, where the sandwich exploded onto the American culinary scene with rapid popularity.
Meanwhile, Peter Parthenis says that he began producing gyros with his company Gyros Inc. in 1973, beating Kronos by a year. Yet another man named Andre Papantoniou, founder of Olympia Food Industries, asserts that the American gyro was actually first developed by his coworker, a Jewish man called John Garlic.
There is still one more potential candidate in George Apostolou, the most common answer when you ask Chicagoans who "the father of the gyro" is. According to Opa Chicago, Apostolou served gyros at The Parkview Restaurant all the way back in 1965, and dedicated himself to producing and selling quality Italian and Greek food.