Here’s the Dish: Lokal Mediterranean Kitchen’s Tzatziki and Pink Queen Dips

By Ava Stryker-Robbins

Lokal Mediterranean Kitchen, on Columbus and 83rd, serves a variety of Turkish, Greek, and other Middle Eastern dishes. You can gather in the cozy indoor dining room or on the outdoor patio. Their variety of Mediterranean dips are ideal for sharing — the larger your group the more different kinds you can order to scoop up with a loaf of warm, soft bread.

The Tzatziki dip is composed of cucumber, garlic, yogurt, dill, and mint, and serves as a perfect summer meal. The Red Queen dip is also exquisite; it is made with shredded beets mixed with plain yogurt, garlic, salt, and black pepper. Lokal offers a total of nine dips which can be ordered individually or in a group of three.

Co-owner Sergio Cetin discovered the restaurant industry when he was 16 years old and working as a busboy in Sunnyside Queens, he says on Lokal’s website. “Every day was different, the hectic pace, interacting with people. I loved the social aspect of it. The restaurant world was where I wanted to be and it became my world.”

The other co-owner of Lokal, known as “Murat,” owned a Mediterranean restaurant in midtown, and he formed a “business partnership made in heaven” with Cetin.

The Tzatziki dip costs $10, the Pink Queen dip costs $10, and three dips (of any type) costs $26.

The Dish: Tzatziki and Pink Queen dips
The Restaurant: Lokal Mediterranean Kitchen (473 Columbus Avenue between 82 and 83rd Streets)

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