Regarded as the “most important meal of the day”, breakfast isn’t high on Greek people’s radar. In many households in Greece, breakfast consists of a metrio cafe and friganies, maybe with a drizzle of honey or a sliced tomato. More often that not, Greek people are probably still full from dinner the night before which is traditionally had late at night. Cafes in Greece are more about sweets and coffee than eggs and toast.
In Australia, breakfast is fast becoming the social meal, the popular meal as it’s a chance for friends to catch up early, a great way to take the kids out and a good excuse to make the most of the day with a hearty breakfast to start. And as Australians are spoilt for choice with multicultural cuisine, Greek food had to play a quick catch up to compete with the brekkie foodies out there who were fast becoming accustomed to eating a bowl of Vietnamese pho in the morning or the classic Mexican starter Huevos Rancheros appearing on many cafe menus.
Melbourne cafe Demitri’s Feast is known for its Greek style breakfasts. When owner Jim Karabagias first opened his cafe on the cosmopolitan Swan Street in Richmond, he had to quickly find his own point of difference to survive the tough breakfast market. Jim credits his understanding of Greek food and ingredients that gave him the obvious answer – to Greekify traditional breakfasts.
Similarly, in Adelaide Maria Galantomos, owner of The Greek on Halifax tried to “involve some kind of Greek element into our breakfast”.
“Greeks don’t usually have a breakfast but being in Australia we’ve all grown up having breakfast so it’s an essential part of growing up. We’ve all been brought up with eggs but we add in things like kefalogravieria and of course Greek herbs like our village omelette, which is free range eggs with zucchini, spring onions, diced tomatoes and kefalograviera,” said Maria.
Replacing Vegemite on your toast with crumbled feta is one way you can Greekify your mornings at home. Scrambled eggs with diced tomato is a popular Greek dish that makes the perfect breakfast meal. Use a continental loaf for toast, Greek coffee instead of espresso or shake up a frappe for yourself. Because there isn’t really a staple breakfast meal, Greekifying your own breakfast is only limited by your imagination. One of Demitri’s Feast better-known dishes is the Baclava French Toast, using the traditional style of cooking French Toast but made with tsoureki and a walnut praline, sweet yoghurt and orange blossom syrup.
“The way this dish came about was because every Easter my family would end up with a whole lot of tsourekia at home. We tried toasting it but it would burn because of the butter then we tried french toasting it and that’s how it evolved,” explains Jim. The simple gravlax, cured salmon in vodka, has been cured in ouzo and dill at Demitri’s Feast. It’s that way of thinking, of replacing one or two elements of a breakfast that can give your morning meal a Greek kick.
By Greekifying breakfast dishes, Jim can introduce diners to different Greek flavours and make them think differently about their breakfast. Take the way they serve rizogalo at Demitri’s Feast as a Greek-style porridge, or their pancakes made from semolina served with sweet yoghurt, rose jam, pistachios and orange blossom syrup. “I love the way our generation grew up knowing the Italian cheeses so well, that’s what I want to do with Greek cheese, educate them on manouri, kasseri, kefalograviera,” he says.
The same thing is happening in Adelaide. Maria tells me they take standard fare and add in some Greek herbs and spices. “We poach our fruit in cinnamon which is a flavour synonymous with Greek cooking,” says Maria. There are so many herbs and spices to play with that are prominent Greek flavours. Dill is a classic herb for Greek cooking but a wonderful partner to eggs. Gigantes is the Greek version of baked beans. An omelette made of eggs, potatoes and oregano can be your very own Greek breakfast tortilla. The world is really your oyster when playing with breakfast foods. Or vice versa you could take a traditional Greek dish and make it more breakfasty.
At the Hellenic Republic, chef George Calombaris takes the humble spanakopita and introduced a poached egg to it to create a Hellenic breakfast dish like no other. For Jim, breakfast is a simple basic dish, which aligns itself to village cooking in Greece.
“Your basics have to be right – coffee, bread, fresh eggs. If you get those three right, you’ve got the best breakfast.”