A Chat with Diane Kochilas
Posted by estiator at 8 May, at 14 : 41 PM Print
The global ambassador for Greek cuisine shares her perspective on coming trends in our industry and how we can adapt.
By Michael Kaminer
FROM HER HIT PBS SERIES My Greek Table to award-winning cookbooks to popular cooking classes, Diane Kochilas has become a passionate global ambassador for Greek cuisine.Kochilas has also consulted to some of North America’s most prominent Greek restaurants. Most of the year, Kochilas lives where she was born—on Ikaria, known as “the island of long life” for its population of sturdy elders with famously healthful eating habits. With season three of My Greek Table set to debut this month, Kochilas spoke to Estiator from New York, where she was wrapping up a four-month sojourn.
So much of your work takes place in face-to-face settings.How have you adapted since the pandemic?
Well, it’s all about adaptability, and that’s even truer for restaurateurs. Everyone has to do less planning and more adapting.I’ve taken what I do from the physical setting to online settings.So far, I’m managing, and hoping to build on that even more.I’ve also been doing a lot of stuff for local TV stations out of my kitchen in New York.
As someone who’s consulted on restaurants, what do you think operators will need to keep in mind as they reopen?
I have so many friends in the business who are asking themselves the same thing.I think the nature of service will change.I don’t know what that role will become—will we have waiters and waitresses to the degree there had been?Menus will become cheaply printed and disposable.The restaurant booking experience will become slightly futuristic, like booking movie tickets—maybe you’ll book your steak frites, moussaka, and Greek salad online so that they get to the restaurant before you do.
What kinds of culinary experiences do you think customers will seek out when they finally return?
I think they’re going to go for the most indulgent, over-the-top, let’s-celebrate-life kind of food.That’s what I want to do.I don’t want to go to a restaurant and eat boiled broccoli.I want to sit down, drink a lot of wine, and eat the stuff I couldn’t cook at home because it’s too complicated, or because we’ve been too health-conscious, or because we couldn’t find the ingredients.I’ve always thought that restaurants are indulgent experiences, no matter how much one tries to impose a healthy menu.It’s about the pleasure of choosing.When people start going out again, they’ll choose all the stuff that reminds them of life, and of fun.
Does Greek cuisine enjoy an advantage over other types of menus in terms of wooing customers back?
Greek food is well-placed to make a comeback. Even just a good piece of grilled fish and horta can feel indulgent.Most Greek food is also innately healthy, anda lot of it is plant-based.It’s comforting food, and simple—most of it evolves out of what comes out of a home kitchen.It’s food that’s convivial, and conducive to drinking, though I’m not sure how the whole social aspect is going to play out.A shared plate?We won’t see that.
What kinds of dishes would suit the new environment for restaurants?
Think about something like a seasonal vegetable terrine, something where you could combine inexpensive ingredients with a beautiful presentation.Or briam—seasonal roasted vegetables with oregano, olive oil, and salt—maybe married with a piece of fish and plated so there’s some height.With the equation changing around food costs for most operators, you can also think about creating indulgence with less expensive items—creating something special with celery root instead of caviar, for example.
A lot of Greek restaurants have been family-owned for decades.Will they have to change how they do business?
Some of these guys have been in business forever.It might be time for a culture change—maybe if we get to shake up the patriarchs a little bit, we can get the young ones to contribute fresh ideas and a new approach.They might develop takeout, or change the way people order food, or create menus that are right for the times, or rethink the open kitchen idea.It’s all up for grabs.They have to think through how to become a more flexible operation, whatever that means.
We also need a new understanding between landlords and operators.Landlords will have to take a cut.You have an operator who was a good renter, there has to be some flexibility, some give and take.A lot of Greeks are landlords.They’ll find themselves on both sides of the fence now.
You run a cooking school, and you also operate an online store with Greek products.How has your supply chain kept up through the pandemic?
I’ve sold out of a lot of stuff online, but we are replenishing.Honey and beans are all gone, and my Santorini products were gone long before the virus.Teas are all gone, but that might have a direct correlation to the virus—they’re good-for-you folk remedies. I haven’t heard anything about oliveoil production getting endangered—a lot of farm work is socially distant by nature.
Are you optimistic about the future of dining?
People will come back.We have to figure out risk assessment. The more trustworthy and upfront an operator is about what they’re doing to promote a safe environment, the more people will gravitate toward their restaurant.
If you had to come up with a slogan to market Greek restaurants right now, what would it be?
“It’s a great way to experience Greece without getting on an airplane!”
