Location: Athens, Greece.
Flight time from Perth, WA: 18 hours, 15 minutes (flying time only).
Direct flights? Alas, no – for the fastest routes you’ll need to connect through Singapore, Dubai or Doha.
Greek cuisine has always been in Deep Dive’s top five death row meals.
Saganaki topped with nuts and honey. Spit roasted meat. Flaky spanokopita. I mean, if you’re getting escorted to the gallows, these are the flavours you want frog-marching down your digestive tract.
But arriving in Athens at the end of a busy Euro adventure, where we’d moved from Annecy to Paris to the Loire Valley, across to Amsterdam, then to Croatia and finally, to the dawn of civilisation itself, we were in digestion distress. There had been bucketloads of buttery pastries, fresh baked baguettes, foie gras, cheese and deep-fried squid – all enjoyed with great fervour and no regrets – but barely a green leaf to be seen.
We were done with restaurants and hankering for a home-cooked meal. In a home, prepared with love, and heart, and multi-generational intel. With a family. And a cat. But how? Where?
Enter Dionysia, who runs a side hustle in Athens called Eat With Your Greek Cousin. It goes like this: Dionysia invites you to her home and teaches you how to make Greek specialties from scratch. Over a few hours of peeling, sauteing, downing wine and motormouth chats, her family then join you to feast on the goods.
Dionysia instantly feels like an old friend and her husband, son and mother are sweet as honey cake, too. Together we overshared our life tales as we cooked up a storm – Greek pancakes with feta and honey, fried zucchini balls, just-caught octopus with fava beans (she literally speared it a few hours before), barbecued sea bream and sweet patsavouropita.
We ate on leafy terrace, on a warm summer night, swapping stories and drinking wine made by her dad’s 100+ year old winery, accompanied by pickles and olives jarred by her mum, honey collected by her uncle and all the neighbourhood cats hoping for a fishbone. It was literally heaven (or as the Greeks say, parádeisos).
Dionysia specialises in whipping up gyros but she’s a totally accommodating legend. If, for example, you have a hankering for barbequed octopus (ahem, us), she does her best to adapt the menu to suit. She even runs food tours if you’d prefer to hit the streets to sample the local bites.
Dining with Dionysia was everything a death row meal should be, and more. While in Athens, look her up or forever live with regrets.
Eat With Your Greek Cousin
How to book: Book directly or through With Locals
Best suits: Those who want to cook with a local family or experience home-style food while in Athens.
Suitable for kids: Sure is.
How do I get there? You’ll need to grab a taxi from Athens, but Dionysia will help you with those details.
*We pay where we stay and only recommend the special places. Deep Dive is put together with love and lived experience, to help you explore the beautiful state of WA and the world outside of it. If you found this article useful, consider buying us a coffee to help us survive!
Leave a Reply