In ancient times, the murex shell, “porphyra” in Greek, was the source of a beautiful dye so rare and costly to produce that it was only used for royalty – the royal purple. Three years ago, in Athens’ northern suburb of Melissia, a restaurant calling itself Porphyra opened, preparing high-quality seafood with a creative yet accessible flair – no foam or unrecognizable frills. We have yet to taste a dish there that was less than scrumptious and because we have been following the career of owner, Christos Cjoncari, for 20 years now, we wanted to find out how he does it. When we first met, he was in his late teens, a waiter at Kali Parea, a popular fish place in Nea Erythraia.

At first glance, quince can often pass as a larger version of its cousin the pear. But it becomes a bright golden yellow as it matures – hence, it’s longstanding nickname, “the golden apple.” When the quince made its way west from south Asia and the Caucasus into Ancient Greece, the fruit quickly took to the soils of Cydonia (Κυδωνία), a town in northern Crete now known as Chania. This is a region that became famous in the ancient world for the production of the finest quinces. Known as “kodymalon” back then, this hard, yellow fruit is scientifically the Cydonia oblonga, so-named for its new Greek home. The ancient Greeks made good use of them, both in savory and sweet dishes.

For over a century, the dense downtown Exarchia neighborhood, located near the National Technical University and the Law School of Athens, has been deeply connected to the city’s students. Greece’s first student revolution took place there in 1901, resulting in the resignation of both the leading government and the Archbishop of the time. Since then, Exarchia has maintained its revolutionary spirit, displaying its most prominently during the Athens Polytechnic uprising against the military junta that ruled Greece from 1967 to 1974. An everlasting sort of vendetta has remained between the student population of Exarchia and the police – often with dramatic results. Everything is recorded on the walls of the neighborhood, in the form of mostly political graffiti that covers any reachable surface, as well as many seemingly unreachable ones.

Before we start this story, we must first explain the role of the platia in Greece. Platia (πλατεία, pronounced pla-tee-ah and sometimes spelled plateia) means “plaza” in Greek, and can refer to a central town square or a small neighborhood square. All ages meet at the platia: babies in strollers, loud children running and playing like there’s no tomorrow, teenagers having their first smoke or kiss, parents, grandparents, cats, dogs! These squares are to be found all around Greece, even in the most remote village. The role of the plaza in an Athenian neighborhood is even more vital and precious. It preserves the idea of a neighborhood, where everyone gets to know each other and share something in common.

In the summer of 2020, a close friend of Ioli Vrychea and Panos Stogiannis – Athens restaurateurs with plans for a new spot – arrived at the Tainaron Blue Retreat on Greece’s southern Mani peninsula. He sat down at the hotel restaurant and, after quickly falling in love with the meal he’d been served, knew he had found the chef Ioli and Panos were looking for. The friend was so enamored that he convinced the pair to make the drive down south to Mani to introduce them to the person who made the food, Stavriani Zervakakou, a 40-year-old chef with roots in Mani. The bond was instant. She quit her job at the resort and made the move to Athens.

For Marina Liaki, Greece had long been a holiday destination, a place to visit family, soak in the sun and practice her Greek. So it was a shock when Marina, who is half-French, half-Greek and grew up in Paris, volunteered at a temporary refugee camp in the port of Piraeus in late 2015. The Syrian war was at its peak, and large numbers of refugees where coming over by sea every day. “It was so strange seeing the port of Athens, which I had always connected to careless summer holidays, in such a state,” she recalls. It was there, in January 2016, that Marina met Hasan Hmeidan, another volunteer who was originally from Syria but had moved to Greece with his family when he was five years old.

The pandemic hit Athens, in early 2020, at a time of transition for Antonis Liolis. With many years’ experience in the food and beverage industry – after working in popular Athenian bars he went on to own a bar of his own and later two Thai restaurants, one in the Petralona neighborhood and the other on the island of Serifos – he was plotting his next move, and the first lockdown gave him time to think and dream and plan. Feeling nostalgic for his mom’s cooking, Antonis ultimately decided to focus on Greek cuisine. So he went on the hunt for a cook and the right location for his new restaurant, to be named Tzoutzouka (τζουτζούκα, a slang term for a woman who is cute, sweet and loveable).

When Tasos Perdikis and Aris Doukas met a few years back – the two men were working at the same restaurant, although not in the kitchen – they bonded over their love of food. As Tasos tells it, they were both obsessed with souvlaki. Almost immediately they started making future plans to open their own souvlaki shop. They agreed on the fundamentals: simple, old-school souvlaki (which also happens to be our favorite). Made without potatoes and often not even tzatziki, this type of souvlaki spotlights the quality of the pita bread and the meat (typically pork); slices of fresh tomato and onion mixed with chopped parsley round out this divine Greek “sandwich.”

Every decent taverna in Greece has a category on their menu called alifes (αλοιφές), or “spreads” in English. It usually includes popular choices such as tzatziki, skordalia, taramosalata, tyrokafteri, melitzanosalata and more. We treat these dishes either as mezes, to be paired with a variety of other small plates for the main meal, or as dips, which we normally order as an appetizer to start the meal. One of my favorite dips is melitzanosalata, made with roasted eggplant. Believed to originate in Southeast Asia, the eggplant was not used in Greece before Ottoman rule. Its cultivation and use gradually became widespread in the Mediterranean region during the Ottoman period; nowadays, the eggplant is a staple ingredient of Greek cuisine, as evidenced by dishes such as moussaka, papoutsakia and briam.

We spoke to travel writer and cook Yasmin Khan about her latest cookbook, Ripe Figs: Recipes and Stories from Turkey, Greece, and Cyprus (W. W. Norton & Company, May 4, 2021). Author of two cookbooks, The Saffron Tales and Zaitoun, Yasmin turns her focus to the Eastern Mediterranean in Ripe Figs. Using the kitchen table as a lens through which to explore the issues of borders and identity in an interconnected world, she traces various migration stories in her travelogues and recipes. We chatted about the inspiration behind the book, her research process and the importance of documenting both the good and the bad in travel writing.

Greek Easter – this year celebrated on Sunday, May 2 – involves a great deal of baking, from breads to cookies and sweet treats. Many of these traditional recipes are rich with symbolic meaning, usually referencing the regeneration of the earth, the blooming of spring, as well as the honoring of the dead. Some of the themes are clearly rooted in ancient Greek traditions and practices that Christianity later adopted and incorporated into their own celebrations. The egg is the star of most typical Easter recipes. An important ancient symbol of fertility, life and rebirth, eggs are also dyed for the holiday and used in various ways as decoration.

Vegetable main dishes abound in Greek cuisine. Those cooked in olive oil on the stovetop fall under the broader category of ladera (ladi means “olive oil”). They feature seasonal vegetables – usually one main vegetable is the star of each dish, with others adding flavor and color. In the lead-up to Easter – when there is a traditional fasting period of 40 days and lots of new vegetables come into season – ladera dishes enter the spotlight. One of my favorites is fasolakia (the diminutive of fasoli, or “bean”), which features fresh green beans cooked in tomato sauce with a few potatoes, carrots and often zucchini. It’s a dish that’s prepared all over Greece as well as in other Mediterranean countries like Turkey, with small variations.

As winter winds down and spring begins to bloom, Stelios Charkiolakis makes space on the overflowing shelves of his produce shop in downtown Athens for crates of tiny, jewel-like kumquats. Prized by local chefs, these little treasures have come all the way from Corfu. Depending on the weather, the kumquat harvest can begin in late winter and go through early April, as Stelios, one of our favorite green grocers, explains. This year’s harvest was delayed, meaning that Corfu kumquats arrived in his shop, To Bostani, which he runs with his wife, Maria, in the Pagrati neighborhood, around mid-March.

Megali Sarakosti (Μεγάλη Σαρακοστή) is the 40-day period of Lent before Greek Easter, running from “Clean Monday” to Easter Sunday. The fasting rules prohibit consumption of any kind of meat or animal-derived products like dairy and eggs. Fish is not allowed either (with a few exceptions), but bloodless seafood like crustaceans, shellfish, fish roe, calamari and octopus are fair game. What always fascinated me is the fact that in Greek folk tradition, Sarakosti is personified as a woman, named Kyra Sarakosti (Mrs. Sarakosti), often made out of paper (still a common activity in schools – my son Apollo loves drawing her!), but also sometimes out of felt or even a basic dough.

After a year spent refining the art of stocking, and then cooking from, our pantry – what else to do when cooped up at home? – there’s one ingredient that we are eager to evangelize about: tahini, the paste made from grinding roasted sesame seeds. It has a lot going for it: Tahini has a long shelf life, is packed with calcium, iron and Omega 3 and 6 fatty acids, and is a good source of energy. In fact, tahini has seen a comeback lately, as part of the greater attention being given to plant-based diets, together with all the various nut butters and non-dairy milks.