For a population fixated on trends, designer clothes and expensive cars it’s perplexing to note that the national obsession with style has yet to reach the Cypriot dining table.
They started to respect the wine first in Cyprus and nowadays slowly, slowly, they’re starting to respect food.
Loyalty to the local taverna style of eating – plain simple food served in bountiful quantities – confirms widespread customer immunity to the gastronomic renaissance taking place in Greece and almost everywhere else these days.
The global cult of the celebrity chef has barely left its mark here, although the island’s top chefs are quietly finding ways to overcome customer preference for quantity over quality.
At the same time they’re challenging society’s new distaste for manual labour, where a lifetime sweating over a stove is no longer a viable career option for today’s pampered youth.
It’s difficult to shift this negative view of the culinary arts, an issue with which George Kyprianou, a teacher at the Ministry of Education’s catering school, is familiar.
In addition to raising awareness through CyChefs in collaboration with chef and restaurant consultant Andonis Nicolaou, George is credited with reawakening interest in traditional cuisine through the school’s syllabus.
“The job of a chef has not such a good image as we’d expect,” he admits.
“I found resources in the UK, Australia and other countries confirming people are trying to develop and improve its image, not just for chefs but for waiting staff and hotel jobs. Everywhere in Cyprus in the hotels you see that most of the employees are not Cypriot.”
He believes the evolution of cuisine will mirror the giant leap made by the island’s wine makers over the past 25 years, a turnaround which has transformed the industry’s output from cheap plonk to world-class vintages.
“They started to respect the wine first in Cyprus and nowadays slowly, slowly, they’re starting to respect food.
“People eat differently here now, I remember there was a time that you went to a restaurant and you had a pork chop that filled the plate with chips, vegetables or salad and that’s it. Now you see different quantities, presentation and lighter sauces; it’s changed,” he says.
Arguably a decline in its appeal singles out those with a genuine passion for the job.
The efforts of the Cyprus Chefs Association combined with the achievements of chefs like Giorgos Damianou, Panicos Hadjitofi and Yiannos Gregoriou, provide inspiration for talented young cooks rising through the ranks.
Antonis Charalambous, Executive Chef at a five-star resort in Limassol, spent ten years competing in the island’s Culinary Olympic Team accumulating numerous awards including 4th place in the World Association of Chef’s Societies ‘Best Chef Worldwide’ competition in 2008, and ‘Best Chef in Europe’ in 2007.
While he concedes that changing the local mindset is difficult, the kitchen virtuoso still enjoys mixing things up, for example with his three-cheese brulee served with avocado sorbet; pork marinated in calvados and apples in a re-engineered kleftiko, and a most un-Cypriot dish of foie gras bavarois presented with brioche and kumquat marmalade.
“It depends on the opportunity I have, if we had a group of Cypriots I don’t do these things because they don’t like it,” he says.
The problem with fine dining he adds is not simply a question of taste.
“A lot of people like meze but say it is too much. Cypriots and Russians want lots of food on the table and they are happy; they don’t care about quality.”
Antonis warns that focus on costs and failure to recognise and reward talent will make it tough for the industry to raise standards.
“There are a lot of problems for chefs; the money they get is not enough and they want more because they work hard.
“Now the work of two people is done by one so it’s harder and people don’t like this kind of job anymore.
“A cook’s life is not easy because you work weekends, public holidays and nights – they need more respect for that.”
Many Cypriot chefs have sought fame and fortune overseas, such as ‘deconstructionist’ Christopher Peskias whose impressive resume includes stints with Chicago’s Charlie Trotter and Ferran Adria of El Bulli.
His innovative play on traditional Greek food has made him a star on the Athens restaurant scene with his deli-inspired restaurant the Π Box Eatery in Kifisia tipped as one of the city’s hottest new dining venues.
Andreas Mavrommatis, the undisputed master of French / Greek fusion cuisine, has spent thirty years building an empire of high-quality Greek delis and restaurants in Paris, a chain which now extends to the south of France and includes an eponymous fine-dining brand replicated in Limassol’s exclusive Four Seasons hotel.
Motivated by a love of the ingredients and cuisine of his birthplace in the mountain village of Agros, Mavrommatis studied French cooking at the world-renowned l’Ecoles Lenotre before revolutionising Greek cuisine for fastidious Parisian patrons.
At his Four Seasons outlet his creative flair has won the approval of foreign clientele, although Cypriots have been more reluctant to accept their compatriot’s mutinous tinkering with tradition.
Gourmet-sized portions alongside the higher costs associated with labour-intensive technique and premium ingredients are only part of the problem.
“The cooking profession here has never been given sufficient credibility or value, that’s why there are few good restaurants and the reason we eat badly,” he explains.
“Sixty years ago there wasn’t food to eat here which is why you are now served with a plateful of food as it shows we have plenty.
“We have never considered cooking as a creative expression or as a credible career, and it has never been about a visual experience, it’s secondary.”
Mavrommatis’ acknowledges that moving forward is ‘a long process,’ and emphasises the need to put quality, education and respect for ingredients high on the industry’s list of priorities.
In the meantime he’s happy to redesign his dining style to get customers through the door where he has at least some chance of opening their minds.