Why did you move your restaurant from Paros to Athens?
Mostly because of my husband, but opening a new restaurant in Athens was a challenge for both of us. Manolis loves to be on the move. Now, in Athens, Giorgos and I meet in the restaurant in the mornings and we exchange ideas about what we would love to cook.

My husband is responsible for providing the best possible ingredients and raw materials for our upcoming cooking projects, even if that means driving around all day. But he loves doing that.

On your menu you offer detailed descriptions of the products used in your dishes; what was the thinking behind that?
Our menu changes daily. We alter it depending on what fresh and interesting new products we can find – these are often seasonal, of course. We believe in the exceptional character of each artisan product we use and in the importance these have for the success of each dish. Also, there are certain regions in Greece that produce very special and unique products. Therefore,
it becomes an imperative to specify where the products come from.

What are your most popular dishes among your Greek clientele as well as among foreign guests? Why do you think such dishes appeal to them particularly?
So far, we haven’t discovered any characteristic differences between these two groups. On the contrary, there are a few dishes that our Greek as well as our foreign clientele seem to enjoy ordering, or are eager to taste.

One of them would certainly be our oven baked chickpea stew with taramasalata and our fava, a puree of yellow split peas with shallots, cherry tomatoes, capers and fillets of fresh anchovy.

The preparation of the dishes – once you have secured the finest products for them – is what is important. The way we prepare our
chick-pea- soup is, we leave the chick -peas over night in an appliance with very little water, on ember, covered on top with dough.
This unravels the very best taste of the
chick-peas. Another example is our pesto that carries the smell of Greece; it is made from fresh basil, Aegina pistachios and almonds.
Another favorite is our risotto with fresh calamari where we use the ink for the sauce. Also, our spinach risotto (spanakorizo) and cabbage-risotto (lahanorizo). You see, all these dishes are prepared in a casserole.

As for our foreign guests, there was a flattering article published about our restaurant in the magazine "Food and Wine" that inspired a few of our international customers to order certain dishes that were described there, such as "octopus with honey, sun dried sweet wine and fried potato curls" prepared as a stew.

What products do you use in your cooking that you believe to be unique?
We consider almost all of our products to be unique. If we happen to run out of the products we like to use, we prefer not to offer a dish at all at on this particular day. Some of the products on which we never compromise include Trikalinos Avgotaraho, a superior brand of waxed roe mullet from Messolonghi [note: this product is similar to French boutargue] and Pistachios from the small island of Aegina that I love to use for many desserts. Then, of course, there is Mastic,
this globally unique product from the island of Chios.Also unusual is our mountain tea, certain kinds of artisan cheeses like Xynomizithra, a fresh tangy curd cheese made of goats’ or cows’ milk, and Feta, which we get from Giorgos’ father in-law, from his village in the mountainous region of Arkadi.

His little village has only 12 inhabitants, all of whom are senior citizens. During the winter months, the priest of the village makes its inhabitants bang a metal casserole with a ladle at noon each day. You see, since it is too cold to check on all the senior citizens, he’ll know, after hearing the 12th dong, that everybody made it through the day.