I went to Salt Lake City earlier this summer to attend a friend's Greek Orthodox wedding. I left home with visions of Greek excess dancing in my head: endless tables piled high with pita and dolmades, vast dishes full of tasty dips and spreads, fragrant roasting meats (maybe even a lamb on a spit), huge steaming pans of moussaka, rank upon rank of phyllo and honey pastries, and an endless supply of ouzo, retsina, and more ouzo. What we got, in point of fact, was very good wedding food (with the exception of the Greek pastries, which were splendid). Disappointed, I came home still craving Greek food, and found my way to Olives Greek Taverna in Pittsford in short order.

Nestled in a basement space at the far east end of Schoen Place, Olives has enjoyed quiet success for more than 11 years. Launched just a bit under two years after Nick and Gayle Mourgides met at their Greek Orthodox church, the restaurant is in every sense a family business. All seven of the Mourgides children have worked there at one time or another - each of them starting out as dishwashers and working their way up the ranks like any other employee - an experience that Gayle says taught them discipline, good manners, and the value of hard work. Several of the children have even worked behind the line, learning recipes passed down from both Gayle and Nick's mothers. All I can say is that their grandmothers must be phenomenal cooks.

If you have ever found yourself overstuffing a grilled cheese sandwich in order to maximize the amount of crispy browned cheese around the edges, then Nick Mourgides' saganaki is for you. Essentially a grilled cheese sandwich without the bread, saganaki ($6.95) is all crispy cheese - a thick slab of sharp sheep's milk kasseri fried golden brown outside with a near-molten center. The taste is sublime, but it's entirely too rich not to share.

Cheese and cream were something of a theme of our first visit to Olives. Maybe it was the desire to fatten up for the coming winter, perhaps it was just gluttony, but we ended up with the saganaki; a trio of dips ($9.95 for three, or $5.95 each) - creamy taramasalata, skordalia, and melitzanosalata; a pizza with roasted red peppers, artichokes, and kasseri cheese ($10.95); and a plate of fries tossed with olive oil, oregano, lemon, and feta ($3.95). No doubt about it, it was gluttony.

Taramasalata was easily our favorite of the three dips. Traditionally a species of mayonnaise into which fish roe (or caviar) is incorporated along with whipped potato or stale bread soaked in milk, the taramasalata at Olives also includes some sort of cream to round out the inherent fishiness of the dish. The result is a cool fluffy spread with the consistency of a mousse and an agreeable flavor very much like smoked salmon. The skordalia, made along the same lines as the taramasalata, was much less garlicky than we were expecting a garlic dip to be. Melitzanosalata, which the rest of the world calls baba ghanoush, was very well prepared, and a bit chunkier than other varieties that I've tasted. Still, eggplant, roasted red peppers, and a goodly dose of garlic and lemon juice made a nice astringent counterpoint tot the creaminess of the two other dips. Served with an apparently endless supply of warm pita wedges, a couple with a modest appetite could share this and a salad for a sensible lunch.

We, however, devoured the pizza and plate of fries. The pizza crust at Olives is good, but the combination of toppings - some of them more appropriate for a wrap than a pizza at first glance - is both well thought-out and very generous. A small pizza topped with artichokes, roasted red peppers, and kasseri atop a garlic spread offered good contrasts in flavor and texture - salty and sweet, sharp and creamy, smooth and crunchy - in every bite. The fries, which at first glance looked to be little more than dressed up crinkle cuts, were in fact wonderful, a sort of Greek poutine that would have been even better served next to a gyro.

On our second visit, we finally got around to trying the gyro ($4.95). It was among the best I've had in Rochester. Unlike other restaurants, which persist in serving a gyro with tahini, Nick and Gayle build theirs on a pillow-soft pita and dress it with yogurt-cucumber-garlic tzatziki, good tomatoes, and chopped onions. The meat is flavorful and juicy with nice lamby notes. The whole thing collapses into a delicious mess as you eat it (as all good gyros should), leaving you with a puddle of mixed juices to mop up with the last of your pita.

The star of our second visit, though, was Nick's moussaka ($12.95). Prepared in individual gratin dishes rather than large lasagna pans, each portion of this casserole of cinnamon-spiced beef, eggplant, and béchamel sauce is cooked to order (Gayle contends that after 11 years her husband knows exactly how many orders to make on any given day). The result is heavenly, the béchamel creamy under its blanket of breadcrumbs, the eggplant tender but not gooey, the beef juicy, and all of it without the truck-stopping heaviness that I have always associated with inferior examples of the dish.

Finally, it is worth mentioning that Olives is incredibly family-friendly without looking or feeling like a family restaurant (it's also important to note that the establishment is cash-only). On a recent visit, my 4-year-old dining companion had run through his stock of toys and books and seemed on the verge of running amok. Our server Hillary, who told me that she has kids herself, sidled up to the table with a handful of brown paper bags and a fistful of colored pens. Disaster averted. Our little nipper happily spent the rest of the meal making hand puppets and putting on an impromptu puppet show for us while we enjoyed some of Olives' superior fig ice cream with a drizzle of pomegranate sauce.

Olives Greek Taverna

50 State St.

381-3990

Mon-Thu 11 a.m.-8 p.m., Fri-Sat 11 a.m.-9 p.m.