From Kastoria to Astoria
Entrepreneur uses Greek herbs to create healing concoctions
BY KAREN GOLDFARB
50 AUGUST 2 0 1 8
Flash forward a couple thousand
years. Herbal remedies are regaining
popularity, and there’s
a new place to get your fix right
here in western Queens. Loose
Leaf (28-10 23rd Ave.), a charming
and sunny café recently founded
by Astorian Peter Zotis, is making available
those ancient cures to help with
modern woes.
Zotis came to the United States from
Kastoria, Greece, with his parents and
two sisters in 1975. The family spent a
short time in Woodhaven, Queens, before
settling in Astoria, where Zotis has lived
ever since.
A few years ago, Zotis, who used to work
in construction, became mysteriously ill –
and nothing seemed to help.
“I went from physician to physician,” he
said. But none of them could help him.
He decided to return to Greece, where he
hadn’t been for 18 years. His experience
there, he said, was revelatory.
“There is a huge resurrection now in
Greece where people are going towards
natural remedies,” he said. A holistic
doctor he found there helped him with a
combination of herbs such as St. John’s
wort and sea buckthorn berries, which he
said energized his system. “The berries
are a little pungent in taste, but they
Hippocrates and Cleopatra
– those luminaries of
the ancient world – are
among those said to
have used wild herbs
to bring themselves
to health. Cleopatra,
they say, used them to
enhance her beauty and
as an aphrodisiac to make
her many conquests.
Hippocrates, considered
by many to be the father
of modern medicine,
especially liked ginger
and mint. He exhorted his
followers to stay true to
the old remedies: “Foolish
the doctor who despises
knowledge acquired by the
ancients,” he said.
FOOD + DRINK