As we march full speed towards this year's Greek Cuisine Awards ceremony, we open notebooks full of notes from our exhausting safari throughout the Greek territory and recall in our tasteful memory many hundreds of dishes in countless restaurants that proudly waved the Greek flag. In many cases, of course, they simply thought they had succeeded, and this is one of the reasons that makes us deeply concerned about what is to come. in our national cuisine.

Another reason, equally important, is that we often feel the feeling that Greek cuisine is limited to 20-30 recipes which we eat either in their classic or in a "modern" version from North to South and from East to West in the vast majority of our restaurants.

So, for example, are pastitsio and moussaka, spinach pie and stuffed meatballs, fricassee and savoro, the only dishes that could express this enormous richness and diversity of our national cuisine? Is it enough to take a classic recipe and deconstruct it – often literally – to create a dish of modern Greek cuisine?

The answer to both of these questions is negative. As we have said many times and explained in great detail in the "athenorama" manifesto for Greek cuisine, a modern culinary creation does not have the right to be "considered" Greek, either because it is based on Greek products or because its presentation on the menu resembles the image of a Greek dish. Greek cuisine.

Greekness emerges and is only ascertained through its taste and aromas, that is, only through the assumption that it communicates with the common feeling about Greek cuisine. In short, what we ultimately taste must awaken memories and experiences, whether served in its traditional or modern version.

A necessary condition in both cases is of course the knowledge and study of the starting point. Understanding its central idea will allow you to enter the "insides" of Greek cuisine and will inspire you to follow it faithfully or even experiment with it without the risk of cutting the umbilical cord between present and past, modern trend and tradition.

Without this indispensable first step, it will be very difficult to make the much-desired leap in our national flavor, the one that will endow our gastronomic firmament with distinctive restaurants and creatively illuminate the local cuisines of Greece with the many and unique specialties that remain largely unknown and unexplored.

We rejoice, applaud and applaud that now alongside the Crete and Corfu more dots are added to the map of Greece that choose to showcase their original and unusual taste idiom. In Rose, The George Troumouchis has inspired an entire generation of young chefs to creatively follow in the footsteps of Rhodian cuisine.

In the highly touristic Zakynthos A brave gastronomic scene has been created in recent years that is constantly evolving, reinventing the flavors of its place. The game is also entering with claims Kos, tuned to a modern Greek rhythm that can only prove beneficial for its future.

Given that every place has its own flavor story to tell, it is a shame that examples to emulate are few and that such a source of knowledge and inspiration remains untapped, flirting strongly with oblivion.

The Greek Cuisine Awards, following last year's call to all chefs to study in depth the colorful local cuisines of Greece, this year are making another important move in this direction, focusing on special culinary heritage of the institution's headquarters, Thessaloniki.

The city's influential chefs, Sotiris Evangelou, Vassilis Mouratidis, Dimitris Pamporis and Manolis Papoutsakis, after research and study, they select six emblematic dishes that tell the stories of its cuisine, update them and create a modern fine dining narrative about the gastronomy of Thessaloniki.

We can't wait to enjoy them at the very special gala dinner of the awards and, of course, to applaud the big winners of the evening!

Until then, You can see all this year's nominees for the Greek Cuisine Award here..

With the support
Ministry of Tourism- Greek National Tourism Organization
Region of Central Macedonia?- Region of South Aegean

Under the auspices
Ministry of Development - Ministry of Rural Development - Municipality of Thessaloniki

Sponsors
S.Pellegrino - Acqua Panna
AB Vassilopoulos

Official Airline Sponsor
AEGEAN