The 14th Gourmet Quality Awards (pics + vid)

In an atmosphere of joy, emotion and optimism, the Quality Awards of the magazine “Gastronomos” and “Kathimerini”, which are 14 years old, took place again this year. There was a significant difference at this year’s 14th awards: For the first time, producers of quality Greek food were not awarded, but restaurants that honor Greek producers, cook with local products and follow the philosophy from farm to table.

Nine such restaurants from all over Greece and from the whole range of restaurants (taverns, ouzo, gastronomic cafes, restaurants) were singled out and awarded this year by “Gastronomos”. All of them re-mean the concept of “gastronomic destination”, presenting a cuisine rooted in the place and the season. They work with local producers, convincing them to revive old crops, support the Greek vineyard by investing in serious wine lists, use in their pots in a wonderful way the fine products produced in a small radius from the restaurant and in their dishes capture the rich Greek kitchen.

Some of them have their own crops, raise animals, produce olive oil and wine, honey and cheese and return what is left over from the kitchen to the soil, making fertilizer, all with the aim of self-sufficiency, sustainability and sustainability. .
Due to the limitations of Covid-19, the award was made digitally, as last year, and premiered on December 23, 2021 on the “Gastronomos” YouTube channel, from where it is available to everyone.

The production of the digital event was undertaken by the company Digital Minds, while in the role of presenters we meet for the second year the excellent duo Lambros Fisfis and Dimitris Makalias, who manage to keep our interest undiminished by grafting the presentation with equal doses of humor and emotion and improvisations sketches. The shooting took place in the area of ​​10AM lofts.

Watch the 14th Quality Awards here.

The following is a detailed list of award-winning restaurants:

“Axiotissa” in Kastraki, Naxos
It opened 21 years ago, before the concept of local cuisine became fashionable. Then people laughed at what they did there, today they want to imitate them. They produce oil and wine, have their own pigs, chickens, eggs and roosters and a small baht. For the rest, they work with local producers, build relationships of trust and encourage them to grow local seeds.

“Araklia” in Heraklion
A case study on how a place can become a gastronomic destination thanks to a restaurant. In the old paternal house, Giannis Gavalas cooks an experiential emotional cuisine, rooted in the place. Everything is produced in the Cyclades by small producers. He produces fava beans, makes lakerda and listens to the seasons: in winter he fishes squid and when it rains he goes for grass.

“Vasilikos” in Gallipoli, Giannitsa
A small gastronomic diamond in a village of 300 inhabitants in the middle of nowhere. The rural and remote location allows them to concentrate on their culinary values. Sausages, sauces, broths, breads, yeasts, almost 99% of the preparations are made in house. Set like a modern cafe, with an open kitchen and in the center a charcoal grill of Latin American origin, it presents a casual gourmet cuisine that moves.

“Zerzova” in Panagia, Arcadia
Zerzova was born many years before the concept of “restaurant-destination” was introduced. They are a livestock family, they have their own lambs, they make feta cheese, they raise roosters and rabbits, they collect mushrooms and grass and they have their own garden. Knead with yeast, bake in the wood oven, cook local specialties such as mutton in oil paste and noodles made with butter and mizithra and in their cellar are represented around 10 Greek wineries.

“Kontosoros” in Xino Nero, Florina
It was opened in 1989 by Nikos Kontosoros and his wife Petroula Seltsa. He was a self-taught cook and with a love for wine, he cooked local cuisine with local products and made an enviable cellar with Greek wines. After his death, in 2019, his daughter and wife continue, with the same principles. In winter they open leaves and make pies, in summer they knead trachanades and noodles, they collect food and take care of the proper management of raw materials with the aim of zero waste.

“Dounias” in Drakona, Chania
Orchards planted with old seeds, organic crops, beehives, an olive grove and a farm with a hundred animals – chickens, turkeys, lambs and calves from the rare indigenous breed of cattle of Crete – compose the strange universe of Stelios Trilyra. And at the core of all this, the restaurant Dounias, where he cooks without electricity, in earthenware on embers.

“Shack” in Apollo of Rhodes
In their small kitchen, our cultural heritage is preserved. There they cook local Rhodesian recipes with products that everything, from yogurt and cheese to soft drinks and wine, are produced in a short time. Even their tableware is painted, clay, with designs of Rhodesian folklore, by Rhodesian ceramics.

“Peskesi” in Heraklion, Crete
A restaurant of traditional Cretan cuisine that has become the flag of the preservation of old cooking methods, such as baking in the kouroupi, the old clay pot, but also the promotion of gastronomy as a cultural heritage. Their goal is sustainability for this and they have built a biological farm of 120 acres that meets their needs in their vegetables for 8-9 months. They revive old seeds, produce olive oil, have beehives but also an aphid and a composter so that they do not throw anything away.

“Skotadis” in Aegina
It started in cafes in 1945, with coffees and fish soup for fishermen. Third generation at the helm now and “Skotadis” has been turned into an ouzo’s for Michelin. Rarely his wine cellar with aged sea bream, seldom the hospitality and kindness you meet, seldom his cuisine, which utilizes in a wonderful way the fish of the day and only the permitted of each season, to ensure the sensitive marine ecosystem and the Greeks fishing grounds.

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