Platanos Restaurant puts Mykani Kalabaka on the gastronomic map.
Its impossible not to be impressed by the centuries-old plane tree that shelters the restaurant and creates a distinctive atmosphere that carries into the venues stylish interior. The splendid natural setting is reflected in the beautiful light of the dining room and the open kitchen. The tables, comfortable, stylish, choreographed, leave space for the impressive dry-aging fridge that puts you right in the mood.
Once you choose your seat, host and chef Themis Bellos will welcome you warmly, with genuine hospitality, and share his knowledge about the menu, the meats and the fine ingredients. He inherited Platanos, the restaurant that stands almost in the middle of nowhere between Kalabaka and Grevena, from his family and has managed to turn it from a simple café for orangeades and meze into a hidden gastronomic gem.
Its transformation happened gradually, with the initially self-taught Themis absorbing cooking techniques and the secrets of grilling, researching the region’s culinary habits and discovering the scope of modern dishes.
Along the way he managed to integrate traditional spits, take them further and blend them harmoniously with contemporary kitchens and premium ingredients. It’s no easy feat to marry such disparate flavor cultures and generate the kind of buzz that keeps growing and draws ever more people.
In every dish, whether it celebrates the area’s gastronomic history or embraces international touches, the common thread is outstanding ingredients. Products come from farms, local producers and trusted partners, and are used with respect and care.
Themis and his partner, award-winning chef Konstantinos Andreou, work tirelessly on their dishes and ensure each one has purpose, flavor, and adds something to this original journey from the kitchen of Meteora to a kitchen of international influences.
While meat is the pillar here, with flawless grilling, cuts and dry-aging options, the braised dishes play a very intriguing role and vie for taste awards. Most are rooted in nostalgic local and Greek recipes, redefined with playful little twists.
The new menu-experience
Shortly after Easter, the two chefs rolled out their new dishes, recipes they had worked on for a long time that strengthen the motif of classic-and-modern coexistence. Among them, of course, some best sellers keep their pride of place, such as the smoked asparagus scented with butter and the wild mushroom tart. We tasted them one by one and enjoyed the shifting culinary culture as well as the deliciousness we’ll remember for a long time.
The new menu is even more generous, original, rich and creative, and gets us warmed up with the signature starters. Among them, a standout moment is the goat pasta, not as you imagine it but as a delicate, refined dumpling that you bite into and the familiar flavor bursts forth, full and lavish.
A similar stroke of ingenuity comes with the dolmadakia, reimagined, as they’re filled with Black Angus beef cheeks, Thermaikos shrimp and sun-dried tomato. The vine leaves are fire-grilled and lend a tang that embraces all the flavors.
Then comes meat time. Here everything is top-tier and plays simultaneously on the field of Greek spit-roasting and exclusive Americana over charcoal. In both cases the grilling is ideal.
Try the Japanese style grill, that is, three special cuts of beef, black pig and marinated mutton souvlaki, grilled at the table as in Japan. From the dry-aged meats, be sure to enjoy the porterhouse and the t-bone and leave room for the final meaty performance. The heavy artillery is the traditional spit with kebab and ewe kontosouvli.
To these we add the slow-cooked dishes that draw out tradition and wrap it in technique and imaginative ideas. An outstanding dish is the manestra with steppe-breed beef and Arseniko of Naxos.
For the finale, the best: classic Halvas Farsalon, handmade and more playful with house almond cream and refreshing lime sorbet.
What else? On the list you’ll find an impressive selection of local, Greek and international wines ideal for the meats and the other dishes, and two very interesting options with cheeses from every corner of the country and deeply nostalgic spreads.
Platanos, Mykani Kalabaka
Source: Reader.gr
