Ο Manolis Garnelis In the interview he gave us, he proved that he is not only a talented chef with a prosperous tenure, in great restaurants, with important chef-teachers, but also a very organized personality, with a view to the creative Greek cuisine.After a four-year term at Varoulkos, I find him in the renewed one Basil behind the Hilton, where it offers us a range of impressive dishes starring flavors and colors.

• You were born: in Athens in 1982

• Childhood memories: Aromas from the gardenias in my grandfather's yard. Walks in Varvakeio market with my father. Smells from the fern leaves from the innumerable sheets full of socks, xerotiganna and buns from the classic Cretan mother.

 

• Children's favorite food: Chicken soup and snails with yoghurt.

• Studies: Culinary Technician-Chef at Le monde.

• When did you feel that you would dedicate yourself to cooking: From a young age I helped my mother and my aunts in the production of sweets for the family, during the holidays. In my first job as a waiter in a canteen, I helped in the kitchen during peak hours. I shared the joy of seeing people enjoy a dish or variety I had created and decided to develop it and follow it professionally.

• Cooks who influenced your cooking: Fabrizio Buliani, Chrysanthos Karamolegos, Dimitris Dimitriadis, Lefteris Lazarou.

• Images or events that inspired you: The mountains of Crete, where you walk and are captivated by the smells of oregano, sage mill and dittany. The iodine of the sea. The relief of the sky, the colors of the sunset. I get inspiration from everything that is presented in my daily life.

• Where did you work: at Sani Resort hotels in Halkidiki & Daios Cove Luxury Resort in Crete, Nabucco in Ekali, Aleria in Athens, 1800 in Santorini, Winch Sea Side in Piraeus. For a year now, I have been running the kitchen at the "Vasileinas" restaurant, in Athens, in the Hilton area.

• Materials you love: What the sea produces, the Kozani saffron, the xygalo, the wild greens and the beets.

• Philosophy of your kitchen: Respect for the gastronomic heritage. We have an obligation to develop it carefully and to pass it on better to the next generation.

• Dishes you created, loved and left traces: Grilled fish with grilled beets and stamnagathi and Greek salad sauce, Stamnagathi salad, apaki, xygalo, figs and carob honey. Tomato root with sea urchin.

• The role of locality in food: The use of local ingredients and traditional ways of cooking helps to highlight the history of each place of origin. This, per place, makes a special and different piece of the puzzle and adds to the diversity for the composition of the mosaic of world gastronomy.

• Greek cuisine today: It is located at a crossroads of evolution. On the one hand there is a turn to the roots with the emergence of indigenous materials and practices and the birth of pure and authentic flavors. On the other hand, there is an integration of "imported" cooking techniques and their marriage with local ingredients. You can see that even in traditional taverns there is a tendency for pure and authentic flavors, leaving the "bad" cooking practices slowly behind.

• Greek gastronomy in the face of the crisis: The crisis has reduced room for maneuver, pushing for precision moves in both the use of materials and the utilization of the workforce more efficiently. The search for solutions at the local level gave new impetus to the use of Greek traditional products and gave way to new professionals with more stringent choices and specifications. The customer became more demanding. It has forced professionals and entrepreneurs to become more efficient. The adoption of simple materials with impeccable execution have high quality results at an affordable cost.

• How would you like to be considered: A tasty cook, a good and fair man.

• An unforgettable moment: The birth of my son.

• Dreams of gastronomic content: Let my students speak for me as I speak for those who taught me.

• Life dreams: To retire to Crete, to fish with my cousins ​​and to make good friends.

• Farewell: Let everyone discover their goal and make their wildest dreams come true.