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There’s a pecking order among Greek eateries in Hellenic Astoria. At the bottom are cheap, overlit joints with ordinary chow. Occupying the crowded middle ground are nautically decorated tavernas serving grilled fish or lamb souvlaki. At the top of the heap are refined Greek and Cypriot kitchens like Ploes, with real chefs, not grill cooks, who prepare regional specialties to order. Ploes’s vaulted brick ceiling, sconce-lit ocher walls, and polished terra-cotta floor set an antique Mediterranean mood, and elegant mosaic-inlaid tables tend toward couples rather than group seating. Its menu favors mezes—savory small plates—that focus on one item like grilled octopus or give you a taste of many: The pikilia combines dips; thalassomezes presents a jumble of fork-tender grilled seafood, and mezedokatastasi delivers sweetbreads, liver, pork, and sausage sauteed in red wine. The restaurant does well by the usual suspects, too. Its yogurt-based dips are thick and pungent, and its individually baked meaty moussaka flaunts a rich topping that deserves to be called béchamel. Clearly, the diners murmuring over bottles of Hatzimichalis chardonnay or cabernet did not come to Ploes for a quick gyro on the way to the N train. — Karen Tina Harrison

Pikilia spread, $12; thalassomezes, $17; mezedokatastasi, $14; moussaka, $15