Fay Maschler reviews Suzi Tros: Greek spin-off channels Mediterranean chic in W8

1/7
Fay Maschler10 July 2019

“What’s dakos?” says my friend Joe. “It’s those barley rusks that get sogged into salad with tomatoes, in Crete especially,” I reply with the confidence that having a house in Greece can bring to feeling culturally appropriate about any foodstuff. “We won’t have those.”

We are in the offshoot, a few doors down, of Greek restaurant Mazi, opened seven years ago by Christina Mouratoglou and her husband Adrien Carre. Christina is from Thessaloniki, claimed by some (probably people from Thessaloniki) to be Greece’s culinary capital. Suzi Tros (translated: Suzy, You Eat) references 1969 Greek film I Parisiana, in which a seamstress sets out to dazzle le tout Mykonos with allegedly French couture.

Once Costa’s Cypriot Fish & Chip shop, the site has been given a more chic Mediterranean feel, with geometric-design ceramic floor tiles in the bright back room filled with bare wooden tables and bentwood chairs, but their contribution to noise when the restaurant is busy is not so delightful. It will be fixed soon, says Adrien. The menu is divided by derivation or approach — Hors d’oeuvres, Raw, Garden, Fish Market, Butcher, Dessert. Shall I tell you it is predicated on sharing small plates or, like an Olympic athlete, have you leapt to that conclusion already?

Happily, prices are relatively modest, ranging from £2 for Halkidiki green olives to £22 for raw scarlet prawns. If you are having a vegetable sort of day you could pick and choose a lot between £4 and £12 while enjoying well-chosen and sometimes revelatory Greek wines and not end up with an alarming bill.

Homemade bread, doused in olive oil and sprinkled with oregano, arrives criss-crossed and warm from the charcoal grill and gives a sigh — perhaps that is me — as it is dipped into a reassuringly pale tarama (creamed smoked cod’s roe). Thinly sliced, scantily floured discs of deep-fried courgettes are served with katiki domokou, a soft cheese made from goat’s or goat-and-ewe’s milk from the Othrys mountains in central Greece. Metsovone, one of the few Greek cow’s milk cheeses with some similarities to provolone, is used for croquettes and partnered with bacon jam.

Double whammy: Suzi Tros opens as an offshoot from nearby Greek restaurant Mazi
Matt Writtle

Greek John Skotidas, head chef for both Mazi and Suzi Tros, went to Le Monde Culinary School in Athens after growing up in Panama. Try as I might, I can’t find a rationale for the yuzu dressing on wild seabass carpaccio served with shaved fennel. Next time I’ll try beef tartare from the Raw section. Courgette flowers delicately deep-fried have a rice-based stuffing that would be equally at home inside peppers or tomatoes, and a tomato sauce that turns what is often a pretty but ultimately wimpy assembly into something serious.

At dinner we try roasted red pepper (one long one) filled with goat’s cheese spiked with crushed chilli, and at lunch char-grilled hot green peppers (two). Our waitress favours the red but I like both. Salt-baked carrots (three) glazed with maple syrup, reclining on aioli, constitute an interesting thing to do with carrots.

Too much dill, that pestilential herb (my opinion), spoils the mussel pilaf, which hasn’t been enhanced by the fierce saltiness of the mussels’ brine. In another league is charred prawns saganaki — the word refers to the cooking dish, in the way “casserole” does. Sweet prawns on a garlicky tomato sauce seasoned with feta demand bread to wipe the pan clean. From Butcher, chicken thighs, fat blistered on the grill, served with strips of cucumber and spring onions on a soft tacos, make a point about the global aspect of good ideas. Grilled lamb chops at £14 a pair are timed immaculately.

Armenovil is a dessert speciality of Thessaloniki. Semi-freddo ice cream, crushed meringue and caramelised nuts are swamped with hot chocolate sauce. It is as rewarding as I hope that sounds. Why is ouzo always so expensive in this country? Here a 200ml bottle of Ouzo 7 from Chios is £22. I guess post-Brexit we’ll have to count ourselves lucky to get it at all — for drowning sorrows purposes.

Fay Maschler's favourite restaurants of 2018

1/16

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in