What does one do when stuck at the airport because of bad weather?

I was not going to go back to Athens and come back the next day, so I decided to stay at the airport hotel and do what I would do in my hotel in Athens, watch Greek TV at my peril, read newspapers to find out about all the wars around the world, again, at my peril.

After a night’s stay and my flight not due till late afternoon, I decided the next morning to go for a walk around the airport, but even without dragging luggage around, it became obsolete after half an hour.

I looked at some shops, bought some magazines, bought chocolate that claimed not to have any sugar in it, still have not tried it, bought a packet of chips that claimed to be cooked in olive oil and is called “Σπιτικο”, sat at an airport bench and ate the chips and then was bored and came back to the hotel.

The interesting thing that came out of my stay was the food. It was quite reasonably priced for a meal in an upmarket hotel restaurant that claims to serve traditional Greek food in a non-traditional way, verging on the French style of nouvelle cuisine, which is more about decorating than the actual taste of the food.

I have never been a friend of decorated food. l love Italian food because of how real it is, as is Greek food, and no matter where you eat it you feel you are in someone’s home. But now I’m getting off the track.

All food can be decorated, but how do you do that and keep it homely, wholesome and tasty at the same time. There seems to be a limit as to how much one can take authentic food outside its original form. It is a trend now in Greece to go this way and there are plenty of Michelin star restaurants to prove this. Greece is trying to create new from old, sometimes with success other times without.

I ordered a vegetable soup to start and bream for the main. What came first was a basket of bread rolls in a variety of flavours – sun-dried tomatoes, olives, wholemeal, white, with seeds and more. But I’m on a gluten-free diet, all the same I did take one, ate half of it and felt naughty.

The bread came with a small collection of dips, butter, tzatziki which I suspect had more cream cheese than yogurt, and olive oil from Kalamata which was the best in that trio. The soup was blended and it could have been any nationality, but I have to say it was tasty. The dish to talk about was the bream, served with fava and melitzanes. So let me explain what you are seeing in the picture.

Fillet of bream, ‘tsipoura’ for those of us who are Greek food traditionalists, with a mould of fava wrapped in fried melitzana. Easy enough to make, line a mould with the melitzana and put the fava in and allow to set.

I’m not sure whose pallet the fish dish was made for, but it was not Greek pallets. It was dry and the fava tasteless. Why? No salt, but most of all no oil. Greek olive oil is the best in the world, so I drizzled some on the fish and it came partly alive with a little salt to help.

It was decorated with a stick of lemon grass and a small stick of fresh thyme, which seemed to serve no purpose to the over all taste of the dish. Fava needs olive oil and fresh onion on top, melitzanes need a little vinegar and for the brave, a little garlic and even skordalia which would be even better. As for the fish, where was the fresh ladolemono?

There are some things that cannot be tampered with and should be left as they are. The Greek gods punish those who deface good Greek food, they will not go to Greek god heaven.

There must be a heaven for chefs who make Greek food for the pallets of those who were not brought up with ladolemono and that must be with gods from a place that has no lemons and olive oil. I did though have a glass of wonderful white wine, Kanenas from Eastern Thrace which is a Protected Geographical Indication.

It was the most expensive on the (not very comprehensive) wine list but it was worth every Euro.