Greek cuisine is hard to resist it seems even for professional tennis players.

During his first Australian trip after his visa ban was overturned in November, 21-time grand slam champion Novak Djokovic made sure to pay a visit at Greek restaurant Estia at Henley Beach.

It was a carefully planned surprise even to the restaurant manager who had only been told a “high profile VIP” would be coming.

As reported by News Corp, the booking for last Friday evening was made under the name of a local public relations consultant.

“It was all Greek to me. We didn’t know who was coming,” manager Ethan Chang told News Corp describing the tennis star as “kind and down-to-earth” and confirming he opted for the restaurant’s strictly vegetarian options, as Djokovic follows a vegan diet.

The world no.5 arrived at the venue with a party of three, including his coach Goron Ivanisevic.

Novak Djokovic with brother Marco enjoying the sunset by an Adelaide beach. Photo: djokernole/Instagram

Established in 1993 by the Mavridis family, Estia has received industry awards, including having been recognised as ‘Australia’s best Greek restaurant’ in 2019.

Nick Mavridis, son of the eatery’s founder, Kyriakos, had then revealed to Neos Kosmos that his father had risked putting all their savings in the business venture when they first opened.

“We were thrown in at the deep end because we didn’t really know much about the industry. However, we slowly got the hang of it; we put systems in place, selected our staff carefully and all the hard work started to pay off.”

“Location is key for us, as is the relationship we have developed with our customers over the years, the quality of the food we serve and the idea of sharing mezze like Greeks do, which is a given these days but wasn’t the case 20 years ago.”

Novak Djokovic is in Australia competing at the Adelaide International Tennis Festival which started on Monday and runs to 15 January.