Gyros Kotopoulo (Γύρος Κοτόπουλο) is the chicken reading of the spit: a lighter option that has grown steadily more popular as people reach for poultry over pork. The defining move is in the stack itself. Good kotopoulo is not pure breast, which dries to chalk under the heat lamp and the vertical broiler; it is breast and thigh layered together, the thigh threading fat and moisture through meat that would otherwise turn to string. The seasoning is built into the stack before it ever rotates, so the flavor sits inside the meat rather than on it.
Building one starts at the cone. The cook shaves the outer face in long downward strokes, taking the part that has just caught color and crisped while the interior stays juicy. The shavings should fall in ribbons with crisp edges, not in pale wet chunks carved before the surface had time to set; that single difference separates a kotopoulo worth eating from a steam-table imitation. From there the wrap follows the standard order: a soft round bread warmed against the grill, tzatziki spread to the edges, the hot chicken, then tomato, onion, and a handful of fries packed inside before the paper goes around it tight. Sloppy versions over-sauce to cover dull meat, skip the bread-warming so the round cracks, or let the fries go limp from sitting.
Because chicken carries less of its own fat than pork, the supporting cast matters more here. The tzatziki does heavier lifting, the lemon and oregano that often season the stack read more clearly, and the contrast of crisp shaved edge against cool yogurt is the whole point of the thing. A good one tastes seasoned all the way through; a weak one tastes like the sauce is doing all the work.
This is the base from which the chicken family fans out. The everything build, the lemon-oregano seasoning, the tzatziki-forward version, the pita wrap, the plated merída, and the regional island and Northern readings each take one variable and push it; each deserves its own article rather than being crowded in here. What stays constant across all of them is the breast-and-thigh stack and the shaved crisp edge that define kotopoulo in the first place.