MELBOURNE | It’s a promising sign when the chef of Melbourne’s newest contemporary Greek restaurant, Aegli, stumbles across one your Instagram photos from your recent vacation in Greece, and recognises his fishmonger cousin serving a customer at the family fish shop in Athens’ Central Market, Varvakeios.
Ioannis Kasidokostas, who grew up in Athens and has cooked in some of that city’s top restaurants, took over the South Melbourne space that was former home to Lume, earlier this year. At Aegli, Ioannis and his wife, Maria, are on a mission to bring Athens’ style of exciting, more modern Greek dining, to Melbourne. I was recently invited in to check it out.
The new wave of Greek restaurants in Melbourne have been working to expand Melburnian ideas about what Greek food can be. They’ve been moving things forward in exciting and delicious ways, but apart from Tzaki in Yarraville, none have evoked meals enjoyed at Athenian restaurants like Akra, Annie Fine Cooking, and ΦΙΤΑ (Fita). None, that is, until Aegli.
Ioannis’ menu is driven by quality local, seasonal produce, and the finest quality imported Greek ingredients. Dishes are informed by traditional Greek recipes and flavours, and taken in exciting and unexpected directions. As much as possible, things are made on site, from scratch.
House-made anthotyro cheese is double-baked to order and served with sour cherry and caper relish, a relish of sour cherry and capers; while magiritsa, a traditional Easter offal soup, is reimagined as a Victorian mushroom and Greek Meteora truffle dish. Instead of a salad, pantzaria features citrus-topped beetroots stuffed with goats curd.
Wild-grain pie of the day, made with hand stretched filo pastry and strained yoghurt, riffs on traditional Greek filo pies like spanakopita, to great effect. For mains, try the pasta dish, hilopites, dotted with chunks of lobster. And if you really want it, yes, there’s slow-roasted lamb.
Desserts are just as impressive, with options like portokalopita – orange cake, with fresh Anthotiro curd and olive oil ice cream; and sweet butternut kataifi with Aegina island pistachio ice cream.
To drink, its Aussie and Greek beer, wine, and spirits, and house cocktails that experiment along the same lines as the food. The wine list, in particular, is notable for its showcasing of wines not often seen in Australia, from exciting Greek producers.
Aegli
226 Coventry Street
South Melbourne
Victoria 3205
Australia
Telephone: (03) 9279 4271
E-mail: [email protected]
Website
Open
Tue – Sun: 5:00pm to 10:30pm