To open a Greek restaurant on the seaside, you will have to take some time to study Greek history and culture to create the appropriate atmosphere, as well as to choose the right recipes for authentic Greek cuisine. The easiest way is to hire an experienced Greek chef and not have to worry about the menu matching the concept.
You can do differently - hire a talented graduate of the culinary school and set him the task: to study the dishes of Greek cuisine and learn how to cook them correctly. For this purpose, you can even organize a small business trip to Greece to study the peculiarities of the local cuisine. For now, let's define the main dishes and drinks that will become the main distinctive accents of the national Greek cuisine.
Menu features
Greek cuisine is olives and olive oil, sheep or goat cheese and vegetables, meat (lamb, goat, pork), seafood and a variety of non-spicy, mostly herbal seasonings and spices, an abundance of fruits and sweets, and also wine, ouzo (Greek anise vodka), raki (tart grape vodka) and the obligatory Greek coffee on the sand. Here, in fact, is the core on which you can "string" the recipes of Greek traditional dishes.
It should be noted that Greek cuisine absorbed many European traditions, but Turkish cuisine had an even greater influence on it, since the Greeks were part of the Ottoman Empire for four hundred years. Nevertheless, the Greeks managed to preserve the identity of their culinary culture, therefore, unlike, say, similar Italian cuisine, the Greeks do not prefer pasta and pizza, but the meat of young lambs and kids, followed by seafood, cheese and vegetables, richly flavored with fragrant and delicate spices.
Snacks: vegetable stew, casserole (moussaka), feta cheese and olives, yogurt (tzatziki), a variety of pies, Greek salad (caesar), stuffed eggplant (moussaka), fresh cucumber salad with yogurt (tzatziki).
First courses: fish broth, bean soup, lentil stew.
Second courses: lamb on a skewer, grilled lamb ribs, kebabs of lamb giblets (koko-retsi), pork leg with sauerkraut, rabbit stewed with onions (stifado), kebabs (souvlaki), cabbage rolls with meat from grape leaves (dolma), a kind of lula kebab - suzukakya.
Desserts can include a variety of fruits and oriental sweets. You can include any drinks on the menu, not forgetting about the above traditional Greek drinks and making a good wine list with Greek and Crimean wines.
Kitchen equipment
Before purchasing equipment, decide on the dishes that are supposed to be prepared in your Greek restaurant. Since we are talking about a full-fledged restaurant establishment, you will have to purchase everything you need, from cutting tables and ovens, including a grill and bakery equipment, to refrigeration equipment.
It is best to get expert advice in order to design the kitchen premises of such a restaurant as competently as possible, since the elite audience from the hotel complex and its environs will come to you. Therefore, a restaurant must have an appropriate level in everything related to the quality of food and decoration of the premises.
Greek restaurant interior design
50 percent of success depends on the skill of the cook, but the remaining 50 will fall on the appropriate atmosphere. And here you can go along one of the paths: to reproduce the spirit of a modern Greek tavern with elements of tradition, or to create an institution in an antique style, using dummies and decorative elements.
Greek tavern
You will need a spacious air-conditioned space with wide windows, decorated in olive, green, yellow and blue colors. Floor - ceramic tiles, beamed ceilings, white plastered walls. You can use forged items. Furniture - simple wood, wood-styled or wicker. Add paintings, wine bottle shelves, fruit baskets, and ceramic crockery to create an atmosphere. Don't forget the outdoor area to be decorated with a stylized fountain and statues. Rattan dining sets on the sites lined with slabs will be very useful. Use candles in secure candlesticks in the evening.
Antique style
If you want to create a unique atmosphere of Ancient Greece, use columns and Greek patterns, niches, amphorae and statues in your decoration. Having shown imagination, you can organize VIP zones in the form of separate rooms, where guests can feel like true ancient Hellenes, reclining on couches, putting on tunics and crowning their heads with laurel wreaths. Consider special services in such areas - this path will be a kind of attraction in the past.
The outer territory, from which a view of the sea must necessarily open, can be decorated with stylized ruins and statues, taking as a basis the panorama of the ancient Chersonesos.
