Gyro World: What’s Vegetarian Editorial Review

Order the falafel platter, the haloumi platter, or the wrap the menu calls The vegetarian wrap, and you get a full meal without meat at Gyro World. The Ridgewood shop at 66-57 Fresh Pond Road still builds its menu around gyros and souvlaki, so you pick around the meat. According to its own menu, the group also runs shops in Astoria and Flushing, and this profile uses Ridgewood as the example address.

Start with the wrap. Cooks grill haloumi and fold it into Greek pita with lettuce, tomatoes, roasted sweet peppers, melitzanosalata, and balsamic vinegar. If you prefer a plate, choose Falafel or Haloumi from the platter list. Each one arrives with toasted pita and a sauce on the side, and you add a starter and a side. The Lunch Box works the same way: choose falafel or haloumi, then lemon potatoes or rice, and it includes a Greek salad and tzatziki. Fries add a dollar, but lemon potatoes make the better pick.

Starters carry most of a meatless order. Build a table from Spinach Pie, Haloumi Appetizer, Imported Greek Feta, Stuffed Grape Leaves, Falafel, and Mozzarella Sticks. Dips come with toasted pita or cucumber slices. Fava is a spread of Greek yellow split peas, Tirokafteri is spicy feta, and Melitzanosalata is roasted eggplant with garlic. Skip the Taramosalata, which the menu calls a cured roe spread. Before you order the Dip and Spread Sampler, ask what the sampler holds, because the dip list includes the Taramosalata.

Soups need a careful read. Avgolemono is a chicken lemon orzo soup, so leave that bowl alone. Yankee Bean and Lentil both list vegetable broth. Salads include Greek, Caesar, Horiatiki, and Green, and each salad takes an added protein. For sides, pick fresh cut fries, onion rings, lemon potatoes, or rice. Dessert means Baklava, Rice Pudding, or Chocolate Kormo Slices, and the staff will offer other Greek sweets on request.

No dish carries a vegetarian symbol, and the wrap’s name is the only label, so read each description. Meat runs this menu. Beef and lamb gyro, chicken gyro, pork gyro, souvlaki, bifteki, and loukaniko sausage all come from one kitchen, and the GW Plate, a mixed grill built for groups of four or eight, has no vegetarian version. Gyro World posts no word on shared grills or fryers. If that matters, ask how the cooks fry the falafel and the fries.

A few items sell at only some shops, such as a pork gyro in Astoria and a burger in Flushing. Confirm anything unusual with the Ridgewood counter.

Pickup and delivery orders go through the ChowNow link on the restaurant’s site, and the brand has a phone app for Android and iOS. The location page carries a Resy link, and Gyro World also lists catering and private events. Ridgewood hours run Monday through Thursday 10:30am to 10pm, Friday 10:30am to 10:30pm, Saturday 11am to 10:30pm, and Sunday 11am to 9:30pm. Call (718) 366-4976.

Bring a mixed group. While the meat eaters split the GW Plate, you order the falafel platter with lemon potatoes and a dish of melitzanosalata for the table.