Costas Spiliadis

He left his hometown, Patras, a port city often called Greece’s gateway to the west, carrying two suitcases, one with clothing, the other with books and records. He was 19, the son of a retired military judge, intending to study criminology at New York University. Nothing went as expected. He now owns and operates an international dining empire, with restaurants in Montreal, New York, Athens, Las Vegas, Miami and London. An Estiatorio Milos will open next week in the new Hudson Yards development in New York, while one in Los Cabos, Mexico, is planned for the summer and another in Dubai for later in the year. Mr. Spiliadis’ father came from Filia, a mountain village in the Peloponnese region of Greece. His mother was born and raised in Istanbul, her roots in the culture of Greek refugees forced to leave rural Turkey and resettle in the early 20th century. He soon left for the University of Maryland to be closer to his older brother, Stellios, who was at Johns Hopkins University. He admired the academic environment of the university, where he studied sociology, but not the Maryland of that era, with its segregated buses and bathrooms. By the end of his four years in Maryland, without a diploma, Mr. Spiliadis was in trouble with both the university and the Greek government, in danger of having his passport renewal rejected. He feared that if he returned home, he would be drafted or arrested. In 1971, he and a friend, a young woman, set off for Canada. Mr. Spiliadis earned a B.A. and started graduate studies at Concordia University, although he never completed his master’s thesis on the political economy of Greek immigration. He helped found Radio Centre-Ville, a local station where he directed Greek programming and hosted a daily show that incorporated news, interviews and cultural information about the Greek community. He acted in local theater. In 1979, he left the station to open the first Milos, in the Mile End neighborhood. His son, George Spiliadis, is beverage director for the Milos group. Mr. Spiliadis’ home is in Montreal, where he lives with his wife, Dina, but he keeps an apartment in New York, close to Carnegie Hall. “I pass by it every night,” he said of the music hall. Mr. Spiliadis speaks often of his adoration for his grandchildren, three by way of George, three by his daughter, Evridiki. He plans to preserve Greek gastronomy through his culinary academy, to prove that his restaurants can stand steadfast against corporate culture, and to look after his grandchildren.