Fourteen years after opening a la grecque, which quickly became one of Victoria’s best regional restaurants, Pam and Kosta have now passed the baton to their son, Stratos.

The Talimanidis family has been in restaurants for over forty years. Stratos and his brothers grew up in their parents’ restaurant in Lorne and spent their early childhood years helping by putting down the chairs in the mornings, peeling garlic cloves and occasionally getting up to mischief, poking fingers in freshly made chocolate mousse before a busy night’s service.

The family would work together over the summer months, then close up for winter to head over to Greece, where the culinary education continued from Pam and their Yiayia, as well as the other women in the village, where summer days are mostly spent tending the vegetable garden and fruit orchards and preparing meals for the family.  Stratos remembers Yiayia rolling out home-made filo pastry with a broom handle and hanging it around the house then waking at 3am to make spanakopita for the family’s trip to the beach that day, grilling sardines over coals on a make shift barbeque in the garden and eating cherries freshly picked from the orchards bordering the village.

Stratos, now with three young boys of his own, continues his parents’ legacy, still sourcing the freshest and best local seafood and seasonal produce. The next generation of a la grecque brings a more casual adaptation, serving the food that Stratos and his family grew up cooking and eating in both Australia and Greece, delivered with the inimitable Talimanidis hospitality.