Miltos Armenis, Christoforos Peskias, Lukas Mailer, Fotis Fotinoglou, Giorgos Gatsos, Manolis Papoutsakis and Sifis Manouselis talk about the return of the Greek tavern

At first, they were called “gastro-bistros” with a Parisian ambience. Then came the “gastro-pubs” with a touch of London. Today, new restaurants open in Athens with a renewed and slightly modified Greek kitchen and new Greek chefs in charge, who leave behind them the concepts of fusion and fine dining cuisine, as well as “memoryless” dishes, offering their customers an updated Greek kitchen.

These new restaurants have a minimal and often playful décor, and focus on high-quality raw ingredients, which are almost always Greek and seasonal, creating dishes to be shared. Almost always, they have a bar set in a prominent spot to pair the lamb dishes with a fine wine or a signature cocktail. Various things have played their part; the debt crisis, globalization, excessive consumption of exotic food or street food, poverty, quarantine, isolation, the new morals and the rescue of the soul, the nations and the planet. “We have a long way ahead of us”, says Master Peskias. But something tells us that the Greek kitchen is here to stay, and there are finally chefs who prove that there is light in the end of the tunnel. We talked to 7 acclaimed representatives of the trend that brings the Greek kitchen back to the forefront.

Miltos Armenis

At Bocas Meze, a cute tavern in Nea Philadelphia with multi-coloured string lights and a small garden bursting with herbs, Miltos daily prepares delicacies and tapas that are placed in the middle of the table and are shared between friends and family. They may sometimes reflect his Spanish origins, but most times they have this deep Greek tastiness since, as he says, “I owe all the taste memories of my childhood to my grand-mother who was from Corfu. This is why I use the wood fired oven to make many dishes, from the roasted pig head to the stuffed tomatoes and peppers. Greek food needs simplicity, high quality raw ingredients and love”.

Christoforos Peskias

During the quarantine, he opened Dopios and attracted the crowds with the avocado tzatziki dip, stuffed vine leaves with cassius cream, zucchini balls with tomato vinaigrette and milk cheese, fish roe spread with shrimp crackers and various other “strange” but totally Greek dishes. “Athens has a room for both, foreign and Greek kitchen. Nowadays, we chefs have more knowledge, know-how and finesse. To reproduce the Greek kitchen, you have to know it by heart, understand its culture and have personal memories. Otherwise, anyone on the planet can make calamari, eggplants and zucchini. I very much believe in using local products and supporting Greek producers”.

Lukas Mailer

The young chef came to Athens last year to cook at Linou Soubasis & Sia and make us all fall in love with his deeply flavoured dishes. He believes in high-quality raw ingredients, simplicity and the return to tradition. «As you grow up, you want to go back to what you remember. For a starter, we offer real tomato juice in a bowl with our homemade bread on the side. We use many legumes, wild mountain greens that are served boiled, sautéed or braised in a fricassee, we make various stews dishes and want our food to be simple and easy to understand, familiar and homelike”.

Fotis Fotinoglou

Fotis comes from Komotini and has worked in various well-known restaurants, before creating his own restaurant, FITA, that gathered all food lovers from the moment it opened its doors. As he says: “The truth is that for many years we used to look at Western recipes. We were lost in cooking foams and other sophisticated techniques, that are far away from our taste. Today, people go back to their memories, they know how to recognize a high-quality product and look for it, they are up to date. Obviously, we too use various techniques in our restaurant, but to make the best lamb, you need to slowly cook your ingredients and not rely on the sous-vide method”.

Giorgos Gatsos

He opened the Fabrica tou Efrosinou during the crisis and demonstrated from the first moment that he doesn’t just cook food, but he makes food for the soul, since he believes that the first one feeds the body, soul and spirit, while the second one just keeps you full. At Efrosinos, you will taste 26 exquisite types of cheese from all over Greece (“I have often been on my knees, begging the shepherds to give me the cheese they make”), lamb with gogges (fresh shell-shaped pasta from the Peloponnese), beef cheeks with chestnut Purée as prepared in Northern Greece, onions filled with rice, pine nuts and herbs, as cooked in Lesvos, lobster with okra, just like his fisherman father made it, and many other delicacies. As he says: “Neither sashimi nor sushi is in our DNA, whereas all cured, smoked or salt-baked delicacies are... Our soul feels the urge to go back to its roots”.

Manolis Papoutsakis

At his new venture in Athens, Pharaoh, he serves Greek food, “the kind of food we have forgotten and have missed so much”. As he says: “We chefs have to get rid of all the guilt about our folk recipes. And to proudly present a fresh version of the Greek kitchen, utilizing the knowledge and know-how that we have acquired, relying on seasonal and high-quality products. To stop competing in vain with foreign chefs and focus on our product. Our kitchen is more than Greek moussaka and pastitsio, it comprises many forgotten recipes from all over the country, and it’s very cool to enjoy and honour this kitchen”.

Sifis Manouselis

Tsiftis has brought people from all over Athens to the neighbourhood of Ilisia. Proudly adding the definition “gastro-koutouki” (small gastro tavern) to its name, the restaurant made it clear that here, you will enjoy Greek dishes, plus any other culinary inspiration that comes to the chefs’ minds. Daily, Sifis Manouselis and Babis Kazanas cook in their open-plan kitchen, curing, smoking and slow-baking various types of meat, fish and vegetables that they search for and find in all corners of the country. «In the past, we have experimented with Asian cuisine and fine dining, but now is the time to highlight the Greek kitchen again, after all, it is what defines us. Friends bring us closer, that’s why our dishes are made to be shared”.