Greece - Day 2

9am day of the Gourmet Traveller shoot, we all meet down stairs in the lounge of our hotel Semiramis for a quick coffee before the madness begins.

First stop πbox, and once again Christοforos cooked up a storm. While he was cooking dishes for the shoot, he also sent us out dishes like staka, eggs fried in a beautiful sheep’s butter we picked up the day before, spicy loukankia (too spicy for George) with tomatoes, mackerel with pickled khol rhabi that is served with just the skin blow torched, octopus that cooked in a reduction of red wine for 2 hours @ 62 deg served with fava, a traditional fasting dip he flavours with a hint of truffle oil and finely shaved goat prosciutto with eggplant chutney.

With our bellies full once again and all the shots for πbox sorted we went to where Christoforos holds his cooking classes. It's also the place where he sends his staff to roast the eggplants for their melitzanosalata. Funny thing was it was a standard household fireplace and they cooked off 50kg a week. Apparently they used to do this in the fireplace at his house (I don't think this went down well with his wife Katerina!).

From here we headed back down to Piraeus the portal area we visited the day before for some shots at Mandragoras, the amazing deli Christoforos gets a lot of his products from.

For lunch we followed the advice of our sommelier from the night before and headed to Papaioannou in Polydendri a small tavern that specialises in fresh, simply cooked, seafood. We started with the freshest of village salads, tasty tomatoes which they peel, crisp lettuce, olives dressed and seasoned well. Then the food just kept coming, sea urchins, plucked from the sea only hours earlier, served with grilled bread, Red mullet two ways, fresh prawns from the waters around Evia, Langoustine steamed whole, peeled and served with all of the juices from the heads pressed out to form the tastiest of sauces and the list goes on!

At this point we were done, but the chef had spotted the famous Christoforos and kept sending food.

After lunch we spoke to the chef and he told us that the cooking was the easiest part of his job, the hardest part was sourcing produce hence the reason we had several dishes using the same ingredient. He would only purchase the freshest even if that meant he only had a limited variety.

Spondi Photoshoot

4.30 seems to be the average time we finish lunch now, so running late for a quick shoot of Spondi. Whilst the photographers did their thing we went into the kitchen and met the head chef Arnaud Bignon, a Frenchman, who previously worked at Alain Ducasse.

Found an interesting piece of equipment in his kitchen, a record player that they place plates on to get perfect rings when garnishing plates.

Stelios photoshoot

A very good friend of ours, Stelios Parliaros has just opened up what he describes as his sweet studio. It's the place where he and his staff produce the vast array of products he produces for his shop in Kolonaki "sweet alchemy". He also shoots all of the photos for his magazine he produces, and runs weekly cooking classes. That's when he’s not also shooting his cooking shows for television. After several photos with George it was time for dessert, and Stelios had made the most magnificent chocolate mousse cake he produced for his challenge on Greece Masterchef.

So 6pm just had dessert, now time to go sampling cheese, this time at a little shop specialising in produce from the Island of Naxos. Sampled some amazing mytzithra, freshly made has a similar taste and texture to ricotta, just tastier. Graviera at different stages, from two months up to five years old. Even had a Graviera that they keep in honey which was interesting. Naxos is also famous for its potatoes due to the fertile soil, which also explains why their sheep’s and goats milk is so tasty.

For dinner we head to Stelios's sister and her husband’s family's taverna, Chimonas in Kalokeri, a traditional taverna in the hills above Athens, in Nea Makri. We kicked off with some amazing mezethes, white taramosalata similar to the one we make, keftethes, dolmathes, fried kalamari, grilled mullet, patates tiganites, Munti, Turkish filled pasta's with yoghurt. Swordfish baked with tomatoes, baby school prawns and char grilled octopus. All simply cooked with love, and after a quick inspection of the kitchen discovered why; mum working the meze and salads, dad working the grill and the rotisserie, sister working the pastry section.

But the best was yet to come, desserts. The menu was obviously written by Stelios and prepared by his sister, amazing Koliva, boil wheat that’s been dried then tossed with nuts, sultanas, coco, and icing sugar. Risogalo with pomegranate, buffalo milk and mastic panna cotta, and the most decadent dark chocolate mousse. Finished off with shots of mastic liqueur and lemonata, and we were done.

George and I slept all the way home in the car.

Trav

Greece - Day 1

After 2 months of planning and 26 hours in transit we finally made it.

Met at the airport at 1pm by our close friend Christoforo, we were off. After some interested driving (anything goes), and some even more interesting parking we made it to one of Christoforo's restaurants ΠBOX  for a quick snack prepared by the big man himself.

On the menu we tasted his amazing taramosalata with prawn crackers,melitzanosalata with teriyaki sauce and wakemi seaweed. "Vromiko" Christoforo describes as street food made from local sausages, tomatoes, graviera cheese and poached egg. Saganaki cheese with lemon marmalade, lavenia (a toast focascia style bread doused with olive oil) tomatoes, peppers and goats cheese.

And this was all before lunch!

From there we walked the streets of the port area stopping in at butchers to have a sticky beak at them getting ready for easter, cool rooms full of lambs, and all of their internal organs ready for making kokoretsi, a traditional dish they make where they skewer all the organs and then wrap the entire spit with intestines.

And of course, tasted more cheeses, smoked and cured fish.

We were running late for dinner (guess that's what happens when you're still sampling cheeses and meats at 8.30 at night!).

When we finally arrived we left the food decisions to the waiters, who, wouldn't you know it ignored our full bellies and arranged their degustation menu.

At this point I have to come clean and admit that Spoundi is French (sorry Mary i know I promised only Greek food), but it was a very good friend of Christophoros's so we couldn't say no. So to compensate we only drank Greek wines, which thanks to our sommelier turned out to be perfect match's with each of the course's. Hopefully Andrew our beverage purchaser who will be over here shortly may be able to import so of the incredible wines.

1.10 am after 12 hours of eating and sampling, am finally off to bed.

Trav