Life.Culture.Discovery.

Why the cookbook Greek, by George Calombaris, is not what it seems

The Australian celebrity chef’s mixed heritage – his mother was Greek Cypriot and his Egyptian father was born to an Italian mother and Greek father – informs the multicultural recipes that went into this book

Reading Time:2 minutes

Published: 8:00am, 22 Mar 2017Updated: 11:13am, 23 Mar 2017

You can tell by the design of this cookbook (graffiti-like scrawls, bright primary colours and hand-written chapter titles and dish names) that it’s not one of those intellectual exercises by a serious chef trying to show the world how creative they are, using the most up-to-date equipment and obscure ingredients (although I can appreciate those books, too).

However, George Calombaris is a serious and respected chef – he owns restaurants in Melbourne (including the award-winning Press Club) and is a judge on MasterChef Australia. Top restaurateurs and chefs such as Marco Pierre White, Heston Blumenthal, Greg Malouf and Antonio Carluccio have contributed blurbs to the book, singing his praises (the funniest of which is by Claude Bosi, of Hibiscus, in London: “George Calombaris? Size of a garden gnome – heart of a green giant”).

The photos of the food aren’t overly stylised and look all the more delicious and tempting for that.

Susan Jung

Susan Jung trained as a pastry chef and worked in hotels, restaurants and bakeries in San Francisco, New York and Hong Kong before joining the Post. She is academy chair for Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan for the World's 50 Best Restaurants and Asia's 50 Best Restaurants.

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