In Astoria, a historically Greek neighborhood of Queens where baklava are as common as bagels, Cafe Boulis stands out.  Panagiotis “Pek” Peikidis bought the cafe in 2016, but he’s quick to say it really belongs to his mother, Lemona Peikidou. Every morning, Peikidou walks the ten blocks from her home to Cafe Boulis at 4:30. She pulls spanakopita, tiropita (phyllo dough stuffed with cheese), and other pastries prepared the previous day from the fridge and starts her first bake.

At 6 a.m., she opens the cafe, pouring coffee and wrapping up warm pastries for the first wave of commuters. Then, she’s back in the basement kitchen until well into the afternoon, working deftly with notoriously fickle phyllo dough and puff pastry to fill the bakery case with treats that balance light with dense, sweet with savory.

Greece has a vast and admirable tradition of stuffing food into food: airy phyllo dough layered with spinach and feta (spanakopita) or filled with honeyed walnuts (baklava); lamb or pork, crisped on a vertical spit and wrapped in pita (gyro); grape leaves, softened and stuffed with herb-flecked rice and ground lamb (dolmas). At Café Boulis, the best pocket foods are served for breakfast.

On any given morning, you can find kichi kozanis, phyllo filled with feta and graviera, a hard sheep’s milk cheese, and coiled into snail-like spirals. Hollow rings of flaky puff pastry, stuffed with briny feta and topped with sesame seeds, sit next to bougatsa, precariously layered phyllo dough filled with eggy custard. There is, of course, the spanakopita — Peikidis’s favorite — and kasseropita, light puff pastry stuffed with gouda and kasseri cheeses. Peinirli stand out in the pastry case. They’re made not with buttery puff pastry or crispy phyllo dough, but with bread, shaped into a boat and filled with cheese and ham. 

Peikidou learned her recipes from her mother and grandmother, who emigrated to Greece from the Pontus region of Turkey. Pontic Greeks speak a unique dialect and have a rich cuisine and culture of their own. She and her son aim to recreate the convivial cafes from back home. When they moved to the neighborhood (“You’re kind of obligated to live here if you’re Greek,” says Peikidis) to take over the cafe, they brought family friend Elenia with them to work the counter. She seems to know every person who walks through the door, as well as their coffee order. Regulars — mostly Greek — gather on the sidewalk, at tables and on benches, sipping locally roasted coffee in blue paper cups. They eat the pastries of home and watch the neighborhood go by.

Words and images by NYC-based writer Tess Falotico.