Avra Estiatorio Opens Greek Seafood Restaurant in Boston

Avra Estiatorio landed in Boston’s Back Bay in the spring of 2026, planting its flag on the second floor of the Lyrik development with charcoal-grilled fish and enough marble to make a Greek shipping magnate feel at home.

The chain’s already got outposts in Beverly Hills, Miami, and New York City. Boston’s the newest addition to that list, and the location is no throwaway expansion. Avra sits directly above Rosa y Marigold, a Peruvian restaurant that opened around the same stretch of time, and together the two concepts give Lyrik some real dining credibility. The room itself doesn’t apologize for anything: marble bar, faux olive trees everywhere, sculptural wing-shaped installations overhead, and private dining rooms that can handle a corporate dinner for forty without breaking a sweat.

The fish market sits at the heart of it. Whole fish arranged on ice near the kitchen, and you’re welcome to walk up and pick your own, then stand at the window and watch what happens next. “Everybody wants to experience the fish market,” Avra cofounder Nick Tsoulous told Boston Magazine in April 2026. Can’t make it to the display? Staff will bring the fish to your table on a tray. Tsoulous also noted that “we love [sourcing] locally, if available,” which means Mediterranean imports like tsipoura and lavraki share the ice with whatever the local catch allows. Once a fish gets selected, it’s grilled over charcoal, deboned tableside, and finished with ladolemono, olive oil and lemon kept simple the way it should be. The oil’s worth mentioning on its own: it’s a first-harvest product from a small family farm in the Peloponnese, noticeably sharper than later-harvest oils, and there’s a bottle sitting at every table.

Expect imports.

The 26-year-old restaurant group’s identity runs through what Tsoulous describes as “Greek seafood with Mediterranean influence.” That said, the menu’s got range. A Greek salad built on Kalamata olives, feta, tomatoes, peppers, and onions is where Tsoulous tells you to start. Grilled octopus with caper and red wine vinaigrette follows. The raw section includes a sashimi platter with Faroe Island salmon, big eye tuna, and hamachi, plus a lavraki ceviche with jalapeño heat. Lobster pasta handles the heavier end. Don’t sleep on the crispy zucchini and eggplant chips with tzatziki either — order them early and keep ordering.

Dessert doesn’t hold back. The chocolate cake slices run comically large, and coconut pie rounds out the options.

Once the weather fully cooperates, Avra’s opening terrace seating on Lyrik’s upper level: an outdoor perch above the Massachusetts Turnpike that somehow manages to feel removed from the highway noise below it. The Fenway/Kenmore area development has been filling in steadily, and Avra’s the kind of destination-level addition that gives people a reason to plan around the neighborhood rather than just pass through it.

It’s a bold room with a clear point of view. That’s not nothing in a city that’s seen plenty of high-concept openings fizzle by the time the first winter hits.