Estiatorio Milos and Grilled Squid
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Lunch at Estiatorio Milos was one of those meals where every dish felt simple at first glance, yet somehow absolutely perfect once it hit the table. A high-end Greek seafood restaurant located in The Venetian Resort on the Las Vegas Strip, founded by chef Costas Spiliadis, it is widely considered one of North America’s finest Greek dining establishments, known for its emphasis on pristine, fresh ingredients and authentic Mediterranean preparations.
We shared taramosalata with warm pita and crudité, a Greek salad with vine-ripened heirloom tomatoes and feta, slow-cooked gigantes, grilled jumbo prawns, chargrilled octopus with Santorini fava, sautéed diver scallops, and a beautiful sepia dish with fresh Mediterranean cuttlefish and black ink risotto.
The cuttlefish especially stayed with me afterward. I wanted to recreate that same Mediterranean combination of seafood, olive oil, lemon, and black rice at home, but since fresh cuttlefish wasn’t available, I decided to make my own version using grilled squid instead.
The squid turned out so tender and lightly smoky from the grill that I ended up making two variations. The first version was sliced into strips and paired with grilled chiles. For the second version, I sliced the grilled squid into rings and tossed it generously with fresh parsley and basil before serving it over black rice. To echo some of the briny depth of the restaurant’s black ink risotto, I cooked the rice in clam juice, which gave the dish an even deeper seafood flavor.
Squid worked beautifully here as a substitute for cuttlefish because the preparation is so simple and seafood-focused. While cuttlefish is slightly meatier and richer, grilled squid brings a similarly clean Mediterranean flavor and silky, succulent texture.