Gorgonzola cream sauce tops moussaka made with ground turkey at The Hungry I. GET THE RECIPE

“When you combine this idea of healthy food with something new, with clean flavors and, for the most part, recognizable ingredients, you have a budding interest that has really blossomed,” says Michael Psilakis, chef and co-owner of contemporary-Greek restaurant Anthos in New York City.

In addition to Anthos, a growing number of modern Greek concepts nationwide—from Ariston Restaurant in Miami Beach and Zaytinya in Washington, D.C., to EXY in San Diego and Petros in Manhattan Beach, Calif.—are helping open chefs’ and consumers’ eyes to the fact that just like Mediterranean fare from France, Italy and Spain, traditional Greek flavor profiles are ripe for reimagining.

Witness French-Italian bistro Lilette in New Orleans, where guests begin meals with breaded eggplant crisps spread with skordalia, a garlicky dip thickened with potatoes and toasted almonds. At upscale restaurant-sports-bar Blackstone in Iowa City, Iowa, diners share slices of warm flatbread laden with Roma tomatoes, kalamata olives and mild, salty kasseri cheese.

Ariston Restaurant offers tzatziki, hummus, tarama (fish roe) and other traditional spreads.

“Cooks and chefs are excited because Greek food has opened up a door of new ingredients and flavor profiles they can go out there and play around with,” Psilakis says.

In quick-service and noncommercial venues, reimagining familiar favorites using common Greek ingredients is a popular approach.

Students at Albion College in Albion, Mich., make nachos-style plates using the well-recognized components of gyros. From a self-serve station, they can choose thin, seasoned slices of grilled chicken (more cost-effective than lamb) and extras such as olives, tomatoes, shredded lettuce and tzatziki to spread over deep-fried mini pita wedges.

At Dogma Grill, a three-unit upscale hot-dog stand based in Miami, Athens dogs are topped to order with diced cucumbers, tomatoes, onions, kalamata olives and feta cheese marinated in red-wine vinaigrette.

“When you’re eating shawarma or pita in the streets of Athens or [other regions of] the Mediterranean, you always have this great medley of ingredients, so we thought, why wouldn’t that work on a hot dog?” says owner Jeffrey Akin, noting that the Greek-medley choice is a favorite among vegetarians as garnish for the soy veggie dogs that account for about 20% of sales.

Upper-end dining rooms find chefs shaping their own innovative recipes around Greek flavors and ingredients. Colleen Grapes, pastry chef at modern-American restaurant Irving Mill in New York City, says that when she decided to create a twist on panna cotta by replacing the traditional custard with Greek yogurt—richer and less tangy than its American counterpart—it made sense to look to the region to shape the rest of the recipe, as well.

Stewed apricots and tea-infused dates lend sweet-tart notes to the dessert, which is garnished with crunchy toasted pistachios and flax seeds and drizzled with acacia honey. The yogurt is combined with sour cream, sugar, salt and lemon juice; mixed with gelatin dissolved in heavy cream; and spooned into rocks glasses to chill over a dollop of jallab, a Middle Eastern syrup made from dates, rose water and grape molasses.

James Porter, chef-owner at Tapino Kitchen & Wine Bar in Scottsdale, Ariz., says injecting Greek influences into dishes works in operators’ favor in three key ways.

Dolmathakia (stuffed grape leaves) is among authentic Greek selections at Dio Deka.

Serving a local clientele often wary of unfamiliar fare, Porter chose a well-known fish as foundation for a recently introduced dish. Halibut fillets are lightly crusted with dehydrated ground olives, fresh basil, oregano and olive oil, and then baked and topped with cucumber-and-Greek-yogurt relish.

More-adventuresome diners can sample a traditional Greek recipe, grilled octopus. Whole baby octopus is peeled, tenderized, and marinated in olive oil and lemon zest before being grilled over charcoal. The octopus is then served over chunky tomato stew with saffron, onion, garlic and fingerling potatoes.

Contemporary Greek restaurants offer operators especially extensive blueprints for updating classic Greek preparations and ingredients.

At Dio Deka in Los Gatos, Calif., Chef-partner Salvatore Calisi perks up a first course of sautéed mussels in a spicy broth of tomatoes, white wine, dill, anise liqueur and Aleppo chiles with house-made loukaniko, a Greek sausage flavored with orange zest.

His plevrakia, typically a dish of lamb riblets with lemon and oregano, substitutes mesquite-grilled pork riblets seasoned with a rub of nutmeg, cloves, star anise, cinnamon, allspice, anise liqueur and lemon juice. The pork is steamed until tender and grilled for a charred finish, and then finished with quince-and-pistachio relish.

At Anthos, Psilakis’ signature “raw meze” is a riff on Italian crudo that uses pristine seafood as a platform for complex layers of flavor. In one recipe, an updated skordalia made with smoked potatoes and Greek yogurt decorates slices of raw fluke, which are garnished with brined, fried grape leaves, crisp-baked garlic chips and pickled grapes.

“You have the smokiness of the skordalia; the garlic, which is so natural to the skordalia, represented in the form of a chip; and the grape leaf, which is so intrinsic to Greece, being looked at in a different way for texture and flavor; and ultimately, the pickled grape, which brings an acidity and yet natural sweetness at the same time,” Psilakis says. “When you combine all these things, it captures the identity of Greece.”