Food was always very important for my family growing up. My parents were both great cooks. My father’s heritage is Greek, so food was a way of expressing love.

Growing up, my father owned restaurants, bars and nightclubs so I was immersed in the culture and lifestyle from a young age. I worked from 14 years old helping out on weekends and after school. As a bar hand, cleaning and polishing glasses, to working in the kitchen prepping food. I was always much more excited about kitchen work, being around the chefs, the work ethic and most importantly the food.

My yiayia (grandmother in Greek) and aunties were the classic nurturing types who would make sure the family was always well fed. They would cook for hours to make my brothers and I food, and then just sit there smiling while we ate. They came from humble beginnings and survived wars so family was everything to them and food was their way of expressing love.

I was maybe five years old, on holiday with my dad in Greece. On the small island where he is from, we were playing outside my uncle’s house where there was a big fig tree. My dad pulled a purple fig from a tree and told me to eat it. The explosion of flavours in my mouth really did make my heart skip a beat, it was so juicy and delicious. To this day, figs are one of my favourite fruits.

The years spent as a teenager were divided between the kitchen and bar. However, my real training or career started when I was 18 years old, when I finished high school and began an apprenticeship at the William Angliss Institute, while working at my dad’s restaurant Fog in Melbourne. Fog had a stylish, chic interior with a bustling cocktail bar and food influenced by New Mexican flavours. The chefs were from the south west region of America and brought with them their flair and style, something that was new and unique to Melbourne at the time.

The way we showcase vegetables, cook them creatively and create delicious big, bold, flavour combinations.

While travelling in 2014, I ate a meal at Nopi. It was incredible and left a lasting impression on me. The creativity, food flavours and combinations were so unique. When I started working there years later in 2019, I enjoyed exploring these new flavour profiles, cuisines and ingredients from around the world.

Rovi for me is rustic at heart, but more refined. We focus on big flavours but use more creative processes due to our working with ferments, pickles and preserves. Flavours of smoke from the fire, working seasonally ‘root to tip’ and the preserves to prolong the season is what makes Rovi different.

Many things. Firstly, the fire – the big beautiful grill that sits as the centrepiece to the restaurant’s beautiful interior. Paired with the ethos of cooking with fire, ferments, focus on vegetables and sustainability, these are all things I’m very passionate about. Lastly, working with Wolves Lane garden and having our own growing space there means we receive such amazing organic produce on a weekly basis. It’s every chef’s dream and really is something to celebrate.

I believe that influences are all around us and we have to be open minded to them. That could be the places you travel, restaurants you go and eat at, the city you live in, your heritage, cookbooks. Remain a student of the game and be curious about food and culture.

Hard question. I have a big list of London favourites and a bigger list of restaurants to book. I would probably have to say St John: it’s an institution for a reason and so quintessentially British. It’s very different from any restaurant I grew up eating at in Melbourne and a restaurant I will always recommend or take friends to when visiting. Nose-to-tail ethos, and a menu rich with flavour. Manteca, Kiln and Roti King would all battle for second place.

Chris Leach and the team at Manteca. I have loved every time I’ve eaten there and think they have been doing amazing work. Modern Italian (but feels rustic), amazing meat and in-house charcuterie, and beautiful pasta – it’s hard to not have an outstanding meal there. Also, Rameal Scully from Scully St James. He was the original food development chef for Nopi years ago. I have only eaten there twice but loved it and think his food style is amazing.

I love to get out of the city when I can and explore nature. Being surrounded by nature was a big part of my life in Australia and has been harder to maintain while living in London, so it’s important for me to do it when I can. On a more realistic day-to-day answer, my day off looks like a cheeky lie in, a bit of exercise, exploring a new restaurant and spending time with my partner and friends.

It’s hard to go past the signature dish: celeriac shawarma. But the veg option would be cauliflower goujons. It’s a low-waste dish that we get cauliflower trim, cut them down, braised in spiced caraway buttermilk, pane in breadcrumbs and fried. Served with a labneh tartar sauce with a fresh lemon wedge. Its twist on the classic goujons but done with a vegetable instead – it’s delicious.

The other would be a lamb rump, with fermented honey chilli butter, mint and tamarind sauce and served with seasonal kohlrabi done two ways; slowly roasted in the chilli butter, also thinly sliced in a mint salad.