Chef Reinvents Pontic Cuisine While Preserving Traditional Flavours

At first glance, the restaurant’s menu resembles that of a contemporary dining establishment, with creative combinations and modern presentation. However, dishes such as yvryston with pumpkin and graviera cheese, pumpkin soup with tsachlia, and varenika with hare draw on the flavours and culinary heritage of the Pontic Greeks.

Georgiadou uses fresh produce from her family’s Rayan farm in Kilkis to reinterpret traditional ingredients without losing their distinctive character. She describes her approach as an effort to combine old and new, enhancing the presentation while respecting the aromas and intensity of Pontic cooking.

“I want to bring out the flavours, not cover them up,” she told the Athens-Macedonian News Agency (AMNA). “I use my own modern touches to enhance the aromas and intensity of Pontic cuisine, which carries an enormous history and deserves my absolute respect.”

Rather than describing her menu as strictly traditional Pontic cuisine, Georgiadou presents it as a contemporary collection of dishes built around fresh produce and ingredients associated with the region’s culinary heritage.

From the family farm to the restaurant kitchen

Georgiadou grew up on her family’s farm alongside her father, Theofilos Georgiadis, who has run the operation for 40 years. There, she learned to make traditional cheese, handmade pasta and sorvas, a traditional Pontic soup.

The family’s Rayan farm in Vathi, Kilkis, has become a reference point for Pontic food traditions. Her father established a production unit making cheese and products from the farm’s crops, while the family has worked to revive and preserve traditional Pontic flavours.

After finishing school, Georgiadou attended culinary school and worked alongside well-known chefs before opening her own restaurant. She initially cooked near the family farm in Kilkis before moving to her current establishment in central Thessaloniki a few months ago.

Her cooking draws on childhood memories, traditional techniques and the recipes passed down by her mother and grandmother. She says she continues to use the same characteristic aromas and ingredients from the family farm, while experimenting with more contemporary interpretations.

“I don’t want to offend or alter any recipe,” she said. “My mother is the best Pontic cook, and I follow her recipes. The foundation remains the traditional recipe that she and my grandmother taught me, with the same aromas and ingredients from the farm. I simply give it a more developed, modern version through experimentation, without changing or erasing its distinctive Pontic flavour.”

The family’s work follows a farm-to-table model: her father produces cheese, fruit and vegetables in Kilkis, her mother runs a delicatessen in Athonos Square in Thessaloniki, and Georgiadou uses the farm’s produce in her restaurant kitchen.

A menu shaped by memory and tradition

Although the dishes may look different from their traditional counterparts, Pontic heritage remains central to the restaurant’s identity.

White tablecloths, traditional lace doilies beneath drinking glasses and household objects—including a wooden kneading trough, wooden spoons and metal pots—decorate the dining room. The restaurant’s name, Anastoreo, means “I remember” or “I bring to mind”, reflecting the importance of memory in Georgiadou’s cooking.

She also helps diners unfamiliar with Pontic ingredients and terminology understand the menu, explaining the dishes, their ingredients and how the kitchen prepares them.

Pasta remains a popular choice. Georgiadou prepares some varieties using an old method in which cooks partially bake or dry the pasta in a wood-fired oven to help preserve it, as refrigeration was not readily available in earlier times.

The varenika, a traditional filled pasta dish, has already become one of the restaurant’s standouts. Georgiadou says she wants her food to be not only delicious but also healthy, nutritious and as fresh as possible.

However, she draws a firm line between modern interpretation and recipes she believes should remain unchanged. These include sorvas, trahana, havitzi with gais, and siron with paskitan and butter.

“My father says traditional recipes are like gospels; we must not change them,” she explained. For that reason, the restaurant serves a traditional dish outside the regular menu every day, such as sorvas.

One example is tanomenos sorvas, a distinctive Pontic soup made exclusively with paskitan, a traditional fermented dairy product, and flavoured with mint rather than yoghurt. The dish reflects the everyday home cooking of the Pontic Greeks, relying on simple ingredients and methods passed down through generations.

Through Anastoreo, Georgiadou seeks to bring Pontic food to a contemporary audience while keeping its family traditions, ingredients and characteristic flavours alive.