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By Root 297 0

definition of the culinary history of Greece is pride. My aim has been to showcase that pride of history, culture, and cuisine and to capture it in a way that allows the culinary world to experience the emotion that defines that pride. For me, it is critically important to express pride of culture because it is something that was ingrained in me as a child by my parents. This clear message of pride overrode everything we did and repeated itself over and over in every aspect of our lives. My parents did not want their children to forget the pride they felt for the country they had left. I, my siblings, and my contemporaries from the Greek community were instilled with this pride. As the next generation, we were groomed to carry the torch—and we did so in every way. I can assure you that if you asked any one of us where we came from, we would all shout “Greece!” because that is, unequivocally, who we are.

Food just happens to be my means of expressing that pride in my deep ties to Greek soil, to my heritage and culture. My art has allowed me to express the lessons that I learned and the emotions that I felt. When I was in the kitchen, I began to explore how to express those emotions to allow them to reach the dining public. It was then that I started to focus on the soul of Greece, because the soul is what reflects the values that shaped the culture and how those values are mystically ingrained into the food.

The cooking I do at Anthos represents my cerebral approach to the exploration of the question “What is Greece?” I realized immediately when I started cooking at Anthos that when people identified with that soul in my cooking, I was able to take them back to a moment of time in their lives that had been etched into their memories. By bringing them back to that moment, I was taking them on an emotional journey. At Anthos, not only are we giving the gift of food, we are also giving the gift of reliving a memory. That is the glory of food.

This last chapter is a way of showing my father, in words, where I am. I know he always looked at me, at all of my siblings and me, as his greatest work. And now, when I look at my son, Gabriel, I feel the same. Those values that were instilled in me—humility, pride in my culture, the importance of family and my role in caring for them, thinking of others before I think of myself—are the building blocks of my approach as I’m conceptualizing and creating the dishes at Anthos. I see the excitement of a boy who is hunting for the first time with his father and uncles, and the dreams he has of becoming a man; I see the pride and care my mother took when preparing festive meals for relatives and friends; and I see myself as a young man, grappling with my identity, and now, a man, at peace with myself.

I recognize that the recipes in this chapter are challenging, but I hope you will try at least one and blend the collective memories of my culture with a history of your own.

In this chapter, we will be very specific—no more laissez-faire. The recipes in this chapter are ambitious and unapologetically restaurant-style, as they are a sampling from my restaurant Anthos. This is my life today.

Some of the ingredients may be difficult to find but, having said that, you can find anything on the Internet. If you have the time and the passion, I encourage you to cook a dish in one of the earlier chapters, then try one of the related—but far more evolved—recipes in this chapter. In this way, you can experience my vision for today’s Greek cuisine. Not only will it allow you a taste of the past, but also a glimpse of the future.

Cooking these dishes will allow you to understand the evolution I made from the hearty, home-style food in the rest of this book to cooking very haute, sophisticated food. For me, it has been a wonderful, inspiring, and eye-opening journey. Every recipe has been carefully calculated; the depth of each flavor is layered with a complementary or contrasting flavor. The resulting experience is exciting, sometimes unexpected, and always exactly what I have planned it to be. So