Greek Dinner Party Menu

Here’s a Gourmet Club’s delicious Greek Dinner Party Menu. Our neighborhood had a gourmet dinner party group for about 7 years. This Mediterranean Greek menu was one of our all time favorite parties.

You might also enjoy taking a peek at my Portuguese dinner party menu, Cuban dinner party menu and Sicilian dinner party menu.

The host always planned the themed menu and took care of the main dish. Recipes were given to each person to make and bring. When I was hosting, I always picked up dishes and other goodies at places like HomeGoods and Crate & Barrel. It was always fun to have an activity to participate in at our dinner parties too. I displayed a table topic activity for this Greek dinner party. It’s described below the recipes further down in this post.

Greek Dinner Party:

Featured Cocktail:
Greek Mojitos

Appetizers:
Marinated Eggplant with Capers & Mint
Goat Cheese with Olives, Lemon & Thyme
w/ Crisp Rosemary Flatbread
Dried Fig Souvlaki

Starter:
Chopped Vegetable Salad with Feta Cheese & Olives

The featured cocktail is interesting. If you don’t want to do that, choose a pinot noir or another lighter red wine like Tempranillo (it will pair nicely with the lamb). You could also be adventurous and display some classic Greek ouzo. The appetizers were delicious. You could also put out a platter of hummus with kalamata olives, cucumber, pita bread and tzatziki sauce, but it’s not really necessary because the appetizers I have here are so filling. The salad is excellent. I love how it’s a ‘chopped’ Greek salad (lettuce chopped finely)- it’s a little different than the usual salad fare. Good start to the main meal.

The lamb is tender and amazing. An alternative to spanakopita, the tart is unique and lovely. Greek potatoes are the PERFECT potato dish to make for a dinner party. You roast the potatoes ahead of time, let them cool to room temperature, then throw them in for a quick heat and crisp while your meat is resting. Drizzle the lemon vinaigrette on top and serve. So easy. And good too.

The roasted garbanzo beans with the chard was another huge favorite. I remember having chard as a kid- fresh out of my aunt’s garden (grains of dirt in there and all) and was disgusted by it. No more! This was fabulous.

Main Course & Sides:
Leg of Lamb Roast with Garlic & Rosemary
Spinach, Feta & Pine Nut Phyllo Tart
Roasted Garbanzo Beans & Garlic with Swiss Chard
Greek Potatoes with Lemon Vinaigrette

Desserts:
Chocolate Baklava
Greek Butter Cookies
Spiced Fresh Orange & Honey Sorbet

I decided to serve a ‘trio’ sampling of Greek desserts, mostly because I just couldn’t decide upon a single one.

Baklava of some sort was an obvious choice. I had never made baklava before, but I was definitely up for the challenge. I have worked with phyllo so I didn’t think it would be all that difficult. It wasn’t. I melted butter and brushed each phyllo layer with butter… which made the whole thing really, really buttery. It was very good and very rich. My friend who made the phyllo tart ended up using butter spray for the phyllo layers in her recipe. Good idea! Next time I might try that.

One of our group members brought Greek butter cookies. She dipped some in chocolate and edged them in chopped walnuts, and she left some plain and rolled them in powdered sugar. They were a good, basic butter cookie- a nice addition to our dessert plate.

The final winner of the dinner party was this unique sorbet recipe. Sugar, honey & water is reduced to a syrup with cloves, orange zest, bay leaf, star of anise and ginger. The syrup is then strained and added to fresh orange & lemon juice and processed in an ice cream machine. LOVED THIS! It’s different than any sorbet I’ve had, and it was a perfect way to end the dinner.

In the entire Greek menu above, it’s tough to pick the favorite- every single recipe on the menu is one that I wouldn’t hesitate to repeat. If I had to choose two absolute faves, I’d choose the Dried Fig Souvlaki and the Spiced Honey & Orange Sorbet.

I had a little table-topic activity on each person’s place setting to participate in while everyone was eating their salads.  Each was given a piece of paper with a picture of either a Greek god or Goddess, along with a little blurb of information about them. Each guest was to read it as if they were assigned to be that god or goddess.  Here’s an example:

I am Athena- Goddess of Wisdom

I am the daughter of Zeus- I was born from his forehead when he swallowed my pregnant mother. I am known for being rational & intelligent.I was never married & have had no children (it is said that I remained a virgin all of my life).  Uncle Poseidon & I competed for the affection of the Greek people. I gave them the gift of the  olive tree, which provided shade, oil and olives.In return, they named a city after me: Athens.

Most of the Greek gods/goddesses were very sexual in nature and had some interesting bios explaining their many affairs with both male and female partners.  The activity had us all giggling at the stories and it made for a fun start to our dinner.

*Recipes can be found by clicking on the recipe titles within the *menu* above. You can always send me a message through my contact form if you have any questions at all about these Greek recipes. Enjoy!

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