Stina joins Philly restaurants’ #NotPizza box trend with a tasty Greek sampler

It used to be that pizza boxes were used for just ... pizza. But that’s not the case lately, especially in South Philadelphia, since Diana Widjojo at Hardena last year began transforming the cardboard containers into wonder boxes packed with takeout feasts of Indonesian flavors. Her weekly #NotPizza box specials became one of the creative hits of the pandemic, and it’s now officially a trend.

At Pizza Plus just a few blocks east on Mifflin Street across Broad, the Detroit pie specialist takes its name literally with a Sunday Snack Box that packs smash burgers, onion rings, and chicken tenders into a pizza box around a 9-inch pan pie. (”Seeing how beautiful the Hardena box was and how excited people were ... definitely showed me it was viable,” says owner Daniel Gutter.) Pizza boxes are also the favored delivery vehicle for a large order of vegan sweets from Dottie’s Donuts, which, founded by a pair of former pizzeria managers, has been using them out of habit for the past five years.

Now at Stina Pizzeria on Snyder Avenue, chef Bobby Saritsoglou has given the #NotPizza wave a Greek twist with his taverna-style pikilia.

This grazer’s delight offers a 2-pound sampling of all the restaurant’s grilled meats for $45 — skewers of chicken souvlaki shaded with smoked paprika, cinnamon, and coriander; snappy links of tangy pork loukaniko sausage; cuminy rounds of beef soujouk; and Stina’s fresh gyro — colorfully piled alongside tzatziki for dipping, chickpea salad, house pickles, tabbouleh, tiny squeeze bottles of green and red house hot sauces, and fresh pita baked in the wood-fired pizza oven.

Yes, this pizzeria also still puts pizza in pizza boxes, too, though I’m a bigger fan of its oblong Turkish-style pides (especially the one with house merguez). But Saritsoglou was inspired by the buzz and resourcefulness of Hardena, his neighbor just a few blocks north in Point Breeze, and thought the box idea could be a good value initiative to energize the takeout-heavy months of winter.

The fact is, Stina has always been about much more than pizza, from its bountiful platter of Mediterranean dips to its saffron lamb manti dumplings. Its wood-fired oven is also used to roast everything from its exceptional octopus to baharat-spiced cauliflower and honeyed-drizzled Kashkaval cheese boreks. Pikilia sampler platters of meats are also common in Greek tavernas, says Saritsoglou, who grew up summering with family in Greece, “though they’re not in a pizza box.”

Saritsoglou’s homemade take on gyro is also a little different. Unlike the recent revival of more traditional Greek-style gyros with vertical stacks of layered meats (Kanella, Moustaki, and Yia are among my favorites), Saritsoglou pays homage to the Americanized gyro, which originated from Chicago, by making a slow-baked terrine of pureed lamb and beef flavored with oregano and garlic. Sliced to order then roasted in the wood-fired oven, a hearty helping of those crispy meat ribbons rightfully occupies center stage of Stina’s box, which, when you open it, is almost guaranteed to elicit a “Whoa!” It did in my house.

— Craig LaBan

Taverna-style pikilia box, $45, Stina Pizzeria, 1705 Snyder Ave., 215-337-3455; stinapizzeria.com