Five Minutes with Simon Gloftis

SG: When I started at the markets, I was young, and I just wanted to have a go – but I learnt everything there. I learnt how to stock up at busy times of day, how to run a little team. I learnt that customers will wait – but not forever – and once they order, they want you to be engaging and efficient, so it looks like you’re working for them. They want to feel like you’re doing the job and doing it properly. I’ve carried those lessons through all of my restaurants. 

SG: When we moved from the Gold Coast to Brisbane. I saw how genuinely sad a lot of our regulars were from the Gold Coast, and how well it was received in Brisbane. I also realised that many of our original customers had actually been travelling to the Gold Coast from Brisbane. In those early days, the Hellenika menu style was one of a kind. We see a lot of our dishes being replicated, so the timing was right to publish a book and put our stamp on the Greek restaurant food scene.

SG: The zucchini chips recipe is the first that comes to mind – there is a lot of prep and frying. I would also say the Corfu bianco, which is my favourite dish. It is only difficult because it really requires watching and feel – if you don’t have an inherent feel for your cooking, it’s going to be hard to perfect. It’s a little bit of work, but absolutely worth it.

SG: Honestly, that’s why this Hellenika cookbook is so good – anyone can cook from it, and I would suggest most of the recipes. I’m hoping people use it as a bit of a bible for how to cook. Plus, the book looks sensational – it’s like a coffee-table book – so it can just sit on the counter permanently for people to use as a reference for their weekly meals. Greek food is the most pure, simple version of the Mediterranean style – actually, of all food – that you can get. It is what it is, and that’s why it’s the best.

SG: It’s hard – we had to weed them out over the years. I always tell people to buy the best you can afford. A lot of the time, unfortunately, unless you can go to the markets early to get the best stuff, it does go on price point. You also have to eat things in season. They will be at their best, they will be cheaper, they will be sourced locally … and people genuinely crave them. I remember around July I was craving cauliflower. I hadn’t seen anything to spark the craving – it was like my body just knew it was the season.

SG: My first trip to Greece was to Dad’s village near Florina, a small village a couple of hours’ drive from Thessaloniki. I was about 12 years old. We all stayed in the little mudbrick house that Dad was born in and slept on mattresses on the floor, all together. We actually ate a lot of what we ate at home – those northern Greek village dishes, like baked rice, soups, homemade sausages and peppers. Really simple stuff – and pretty much all of those village dishes have been served at Hellenika and are in the book.

SG: One of the islands I love is Tinos. It’s very close to Mykonos, so you could tie them in together, but Tinos is amazing. It’s got its own food culture – they don’t make food from other regions. There are some really great restaurants with bangin’ food and vineyards that make incredible wine. I think Tinos wine is far superior to wine from Santorini, it’s more comparable with some of the northern Greek wines. You can taste the saline in these wines; you can really taste where it’s from – in a good way.

Next, I would say up on the border – northern Greece where my family is from. You can do that area, then travel over the border into Macedonia. Lake Ohrid and the area around it are just sensational. The food is really different too; it’s beautiful. 

Finally, I think I would suggest the outskirts of Athens. It might not be off the beaten track as such, but you feel like you could be anywhere in the world. I really love it. Athens is amazing, but if you drive out, even just 20 minutes, there are some incredible tavernas and places to be discovered.

I will say that there are countless places I haven’t been to that I want to visit. If I have the time, I want to spend a couple of months exploring the other side of Greece – go all through the Peloponnese and those islands off the west coast. 

SG: I was going through a flat spot in my early 20s where I felt like I didn’t fit in – nothing was wrong per se, I was thinking on different wavelengths to my friends and peers. I was creative, but I didn’t really have a creative outlet where I lived on the Gold Coast. My friends didn’t really get my brain. So, I used to get on a plane and travel – just by myself because I had no one who was interested in coming with me. I would go to Hong Kong, Sydney, or back down to Melbourne. When I was 20, I hired a car and drove around Adelaide and the Barossa, visited wineries, beaches, all of these beautiful places. I did it all by myself, before the internet, before Instagram. I learnt a lot of things on those trips.

When I would come home, to feel a bit of comfort, I would watch Rick Stein. I don’t know what it was for me – Rick Stein was like my best mate who I’d never met. People come home to a dog or a cat as a companion; I had Rick Stein. I would play it constantly. He has an understanding for food that I really like. Is he the world’s best chef? No. Does he eat at the world’s best restaurants? Not really. He has a certain thing that he does, and it resonated with me and has ever since. Without realising it, I think I have taken a lot of inspiration from the style of food that Rick Stein likes and where he’s been.

I actually still watch it. You can’t stream French Odyssey anywhere, so I went and bought a DVD player just so I can watch it.

SG: The Corfu bianco. Actually, he went to a place in Corfu and had a bianco … you know what, now that I think about it, I think the inspiration for my recipe came from there. I honestly believe I have perfected it, so I would love to cook that for him because I know he would like that. Also, any of my fish soups.

SG: Probably a soup for breakfast. Avgolemono, or fish soup. For lunch, probably the Corfu bianco – no surprises there – or one of my baked fish dishes. For dinner probably gigantes – baked lima beans in the oven – or my family’s chicken rice.

SG: He had better love food, that’s all I’m saying! I want him to really taste and understand food. I don’t like it when people say they hate something. You don’t hate it, let me make it for you, and you’ll like it. I hope he appreciates food – I will be cooking around him all day so he’ll understand, and I think he will pick up things without realising it, like I did from my grandmother. I want to sit around a table of food with him and not have to explain it – for him to understand the reason why we do this – that is something I want to really instil in him when he grows up.

I remember as a kid looking so forward to Christmas because we would have a lamb on the spit. So we could all be out there with Dad, making the lamb, licking our fingers and then having a lick of the lamb as it’s going around before it comes off. I want him to experience that like we had; it’s one of my most cherished memories.