A review published in The Age’s Epicure last week on George Calombaris’ latest street food venture, upset members of the community after food critic Larissa Dubecki stated that Calombaris had “[rescued] Greek food from the ghetto”.
However, Ms Dubecki – food critic at The Age – told Neos Kosmos, she was exercising “poetic licence” in her review of Gazi and that Greek food has undoubtedly had an image problem for quite some time but seems to be on the up.
“It was a bit of poetic licence to describe Greek foods PR problem which it undoubtedly has from any persons point of view. Greek food has laid under the misapprehension in Australia that it’s purely about the taverna and Zorba-isms and smashing plates and fishing nets decorating restaurants and I was merely remarking that George Calombaris was the first chef to really show Australians that there’s more to it than those clichés,” says Ms Dubecki.
“I wasn’t insulting Greek food – I was saying that Greek food has had an image problem and Indian food has had the same thing going on.”
She says restaurants like Gazi do a great job of showing “that Greek food doesn’t have to be stuck in the past and doesn’t have to ascribe to these clichés”.
“It shows how modern Greek food can be, and how delicious and how on trend it can be.”
Restaurateur John Rerakis agrees with the sentiment. As one of the pioneers at rescuing Greek food and highlighting the seasonal and regional cuisine of Cretan dishes he admits that he was faced with obstacles when educating diners on the real Greek food.
“Greek cuisine was always stereotyped as catering for large groups, no menus, platters of meat and seafood and people would eat away and it was always about the big pareas and fun nights and not about the food,” he says adding that there is a demand for that style of dining. As one of the managing directors of Philhellene Provincial Cuisine in Melbourne’s Moonee Ponds, Mr Rerakis says that diners are enjoying eating real Greek cuisine, and food Greeks have known from the home and generations passed.
He says the food he serves has a focus on seasonal and vegetarian foods, and was recently invited to a speak at a conference at Flinders University on the benefits of a Cretan diet.
“I know that there are more modern Greek restaurants popping up and I think it’s going to be the start of something that will become quite normal over the course of the next decade,” concludes Ms Dubecki.
