SC - Anyone for Greek tonight?

[Susan Fox-Davis]

McPlato's serves up food for thought

A restaurant chain offering a taste of ancient Greece to the classically
inclined is wooing
devotees away from moussaka

By Helena Smith in Athens
Guardian

Monday March 15, 1999

After more than 2,000 years, the Greeks have rediscovered their ancient
taste buds. The classical
concoctions enjoyed by Socrates in Plato's Symposium are again whetting
appetites in Athens - the city
that hosted the world's most famous dinner party.

The food on which guests feasted while they debated the nature of love
has taken modern Greek palates
by storm. People have been piling into Archaion Gefsis (Ancient Tastes)
and, if plans to franchise the
fare internationally take off, Golden Age cooking could soon be
competing with fast food. Critics are
already calling it McPlato's.

Straddling the road that leads to Corinth, Ancient Tastes boasts
delicacies of a kind not seen since
146BC, when the Romans ravaged Athens. It launches a chain that expands
to the port of Piraeus next
month and the islands in the autumn.

Panayiotis, a waiter wearing an ankle-length toga, says: 'Here you will
drink and dine just as they did in
the Symposium. You will not imbibe too much because that will cloud the
mind. A clear mind is
necessary for good debate.'

No one knows exactly what ancient Greek food tasted like, but it is
clear that honey and vinegar were
used in abundance to create sweet and sour sauces, and fresh herbs and
spices, particularly thyme,
were favourites.

There were more than 70 kinds of bread - of which barley was a central
ingredient. Fish, figs and fresh
vegetables were all popular.

All these ingredients are used at Ancient Tastes, while tomatoes, pasta,
rice, potatoes, coffee and cola
do not appear on the menu on the grounds that they would have been as
foreign to ancient gastronomy
as gas ovens and fridges.

Ioannis Adamis, the restaurant's owner, said the idea of eating
ancient-style food came to him in a fit of
fury. 'It made me angry that unhealthy, greasy foods like moussaka had
come to be associated with
Greece's national cuisine,' he said. 'Moussaka, like almost all our
dishes, was a by-product of the
Ottoman empire. Sophocles would certainly not have eaten kebabs.'

His wife, Souli, and a team of researchers spent two years in museums
and universities studying the
culinary secrets of their ancestors.

'Ancient Greek civilisation may have been studied and explored from
every other angle, but the issue of
what the ancients actually ate was totally unknown,' Mr Adamis said.

Most of the restaurant's 30 or so recipes are based on the Luxury of
Life, a 15-volume opus by the
4th-century BC Sicilian Greek Archestratus.

'I quickly learned that the ancients were very fond of fish,' said Mrs
Adamis, who tried grilled
grasshoppers and fried cicadas as part of her research.

But Archestratus was not so hot on detail. Like Andrew Dalby, co-author
of The Classical Cookbook -
the only modern work on the subject - Mrs Adamis discovered that the
small matter of quantities was
often totally overlooked.

Even so, the food has gone down a treat because of its low-fat sauces
and healthy ingredients.
Investment firms in the United States, France and Germany have expressed
an interest in the franchise.

Not only is the food authentic, but so is the atmosphere. 'The ancient
Greeks never used forks, and the
Romans considered them aggressive utensils that ultimately inspired
indigestion,' Mr Adamis said. 'We
have compromised with spoons and knives. Back then, of course, people
happily ate off tables.'

But the traditional male-only dining area has not met with as much
enthusiasm. 'It seems that we're
going to face a real problem finding women who will serve men in the
anaklitra,' says Mr Adamis, of an
area where men are fed reclining on couches.

Menu
A selection of dishes serves at Archaion Gefsis

Cuttlefish cooked in its own ink with pine kernels and barley 3,000
drachmas (£6.45)

Greens and garden rocket with goat's cheese, olive oil and vinegar 2,800
drachmas (£6)

Vegetables with game, crayfish, mussels, coriander, mushrooms, olives
and radishes 3,800
drachmas (£8.20)

Stuffed slices of pork filled with plums, accompanied by artichokes and
fresh pea puree 3,800
drachmas (£8.20)

Swordfish with sweet and sour sauce and crushed mulberries 4,800
drachmas (£10.30)