Pimp my plate
B
Kali oreksi!
Despite a love of Greek ingredients and cuisine, Ilias Kokoroskos, Head Chef of the Majestic’s Elia Restaurant, was ready to accept any reinvention test we could throw at him. Tempted to suggest Black Forest Gateau, we turned instead to that Asian classic Pad Thai! 24
The Pro Chef Middle East / March 2013
ased at Elia for the past two and a half years, Chef Ilias grew up in Athens. Sadly for a small boy who loved food, his mother didn’t like cooking although “she was very good” when she did so. “Your mother’s food is the first taste in your mind,” he reminisces. “Today, when someone says my food tastes homemade, I see that as a big success for me.” At 14, he decided he wanted to be a cook but was sent back to finish high school; at 18, he was just as keen and entered the industry via a small taverna-style restaurant in Athens. “It was a real shock to me and I didn’t know how I would survive. But I learned a lot in the first six months and was completely in love with cooking.” He then too the classic step and worked for free in one of Athens’ top restaurants, Jérôme Serres’ Pil Poul adding French techniques to his Greek background. After that he spent a season as Demi Chef de Partie at the Grand Resort Lagonissi in Athens, working in Galazia Akti, a restaurant specialising in Cretan cuisine. “It was modern Greek cuisine - recognisable but with lots of small touches.” After the season, he worked in the small but high quality Pere Ubu, again mixing French and Greek styles before returning for another season at the Grand Resort Lagonissi. “Next I spent eight months at Apolis, which served modern Greek cuisine and had the best view in Athens of both sea and mountains!” Finally, it was time to spread his wings and he took a job as Chef de Partie in Belgium, cooking French cuisine. “What did I think of Belgium? I have no idea - I was so busy working I hardly saw anything. I was there to take knowledge and worked 7-12 every day. He returned to Pil Poul as Sous Chef before joining Elia, under Chef Yiannis Baxevanis. “He had been one of my teachers at culinary school and he could be tough! I remember just about the first thing he asked me as a student, ‘Why is the deep fryer dirty?’ but he was a great teacher and now a great chef to work with. I had initially wanted to go to the CIA and had been accepted but the $80,000 tuition fees for six months were just out of my reach.” How does he work with Chef Yiannis? “He comes out four times a year or more and is always open to my ideas. We talk them through and the menu here is a co-operation between us. He doesn’t have a big ego complex - he likes his team to contribute. Recipes most of the time are just borrowing ideas can you create anything new? I like simple food.” So how did he face up to the challenge? “To be honest, I don’t recall Pad Thai as a dish - I’ve eaten a lot of Thai food but don’t always remember the names of the dishes. But in Greece, we love homemade pasta and seafood, so that seemed the obvious way to go. Pasta and tomato sauce is it Italian? There are similarities, of course, but the flavours are different and the addition of lemongrass gives this a suggestion of Thailand. Would I put it on the menu here at Eloa? I think it would destroy the menu and most people would only eat this!”
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