our first ever supper club!

A huge thank you to everyone that joined us for our very first supper club on Wednesday 13 July - we can't believe we did it!

From the first shots of ouzo to the greek coffee and spoonful of cherry preserve, the night flew by in a blur. We were so honoured to be able to serve our menu to our guests and see them enjoy what was just a vision in our minds until then. A special thank you to Nanna's as well for providing the perfect setting for our evening. 

our menu

For those of you that weren't there, here's our menu from the night:

The menu was inspired by a desire to replicate the ethos of eating with friends and family in Greece, which is that your table should have great conversation, dishes to share, tasty food and lots of it! We wanted to introduce certain traditional Greek dishes from my childhood with hints of contemporary flavours and techniques. 

To start with guests were given a shot of Ouzo 5, my pappou's ouzo, with ice. This accompanied homemade koulouri (sesame seed pretzels usually found on the streets of Thessaloniki) for dipping in tzatziki and eating with sardines and olives.

This was followed by a variety of side dishes including a fava bean dip (a recipe from the islands in Greece), long green peppers in tomato (my yaya's favourite) and roasted aubergine with pomegranate, plus larger dishes of chargrilled octopus, meatballs and lemon potatoes, and spinach and rice with dill and lemon.

To finish we served roasted figs with greek yoghurt, walnuts and a slice of revani (a traditional semolina cake), and finally a small cup of greek coffee with a spoon of cherry preserve - something my yaya would always serve guests on a pretty glass dish placed on a doily.

In the coming weeks I'll be posting some recipes from the night so watch this space if you want to bring a little yaya into your home!

what's next?

We had so much fun we're doing a second supper club at Nanna's on Wednesday 24 August. We hope you can join us!

In the meantime, here are some pics from our first night...

who are we and what are we doing?

Good question! Lou and I have been friends since we met whilst studying. We both love food and enjoying the exciting culinary landscape in London, and modestly hope to be a small part of that with our supper club.

Although we’re ‘themed’ as Greek supper club, our intention is to take the foundations of Greek cuisine and show its relevance to modern eating. We see these foundations as pretty universal: good healthy food and great conversation.

With this blog I’m going to dig a little deeper into Greek food, from the history of recipes to the rituals of eating, with some pretty pictures in between. The focus will be on the Thessaloniki region that my family come from, which is also where we’re drawing the recipes for the supper club.

In the meantime, here’s a little more about Lou and I…

Emily

• I live in Hackney
• My dad is from England, my mum is from Greece
• I work in the arts but my passion lies in cooking, and reading and writing recipes
• As a child I spent my summers with my grandparents in a tiny village in the north of Greece called Emmanuel Papas. Here I would turn wild, never allowing anyone to brush my hair other than the baker, collecting bones from the butcher to give to my grandfather’s hunting spaniels, learning xoryatika or ‘village’ Greek
• I can sometimes put on this accent, which weirds Greek people out as I sound like a hillbilly
• Greek food reminds me of my grandparents, the giant pear tree in their garden, my great Aunt Sophia and her gold teeth, the bell on the shepherd’s donkey, greeting the village priest each morning, the smell of ouzo, the sound of the village square as I was falling asleep, cigarettes, holy water, thick Greek coffee, frankincense and myrrh, backgammon, doilies, uncomfortable plastic chairs, threading tobacco onto metal spikes to be hung dry, cotton fields…

Lou

• I live in Stoke Newington, and love it...
• Although I’m doing a Greek supper club, I’m actually part Spanish…
• I once went on a terrarium workshop. Yeah.
• I work in advertising, but my passion lies in good food and travel. If I haven’t got a trip abroad lined up I start to get the sweats…
• My favourite film is Liar, Liar
• I can name every England footballer from Euro ‘96
• I once hitchhiked to Morocco (from England)
• I have a passion for contemporary dance - think rainbow rhythms….
• I’ve decided to take up the violin this year – I’ve managed to make some legit violin sounds already…
• As if I don’t have enough on my plate, I also make apothecary gifts which you can buy at my online shop: lovemenotshop.com
• Greek food reminds me of holidays, jumping off boats into crystal clear waters, eating too much bread and oil, old men sitting on plastic chairs on the street, family...