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Elyros

Dani Valent
Dani Valent

Cretan comfort: Elyros occupies a stately former bank.
Cretan comfort: Elyros occupies a stately former bank.Jesse Marlow

Good Food hat15/20

Greek$$$

Six weeks ago, the morning after Angie Giannakodakis received The Age Good Food Guide award for service excellence, she woke up gingerly, pulled on her tracky-dacks and painted the bar at Elyros, the Camberwell restaurant she owns alongside Disa Dimitrakakis and Guy Holder. Elyros opened the following week and began serving honest Cretan food with the reassuring, heart-piercing hospitality that won Giannakodakis the prize.

She and Holder also own Epocha, a two-year-old European restaurant in Carlton; Elyros feels like a member of the family, but the focus here is tighter, which gives the restaurant a lovely emotional anchor and a coherent story. Giannakodakis and Dimitrakakis are of Cretan descent, so it makes personal sense, but I also think the specificity will help pitch the restaurant to eastern-suburban diners who tend to seek security rather than adventure when they eat out.

Crete is a hardscrabble island dotted with goats and thick with wild weeds. The cuisine is frugal, seasonal by necessity, and steeped in traditions of preserving. It's the kind of place where people fight about whose grandmother makes the best cheese pie. (I think Disa's does – you must order it.)

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Salmon, onions and fennel.
Salmon, onions and fennel.Jesse Marlow

Elyros finds a logical balance between importing the flavours of the island and honouring the cuisine with Australian ingredients. The olive oil comes from Crete - it tastes like it feels to stand on an exposed rock in sunshine and a stiff sea breeze. A dish of the oil is set on the table with firm, fruity olives, goat's cheese, sourdough bread and rusks (Cretans dry their leftover bread so as not to waste it). The bread basket is lined with sage, thyme and oregano leaves, turning the basic offering of bread into a subtle, sensual vehicle to transport the diner to the other side of the world.

Elyros isn't the Greek restaurant as we've known it. It's a taramasalata-free zone, there's no fried cheese, and they don't speak souvlaki. Try not to call it a dip, but there is a fava puree made with split peas and topped with capers; it's a textured mash rather than a silky puree, and it's comforting and delicious. Other dishes speak emphatically of what they are. Pippies are just-cooked and lightly dressed. Lamb leg and shoulder are slowly roasted until garlic-infused flesh and oregano-marinated fat meld into sticky hunks of joy. Root vegetables, scrubbed not peeled, are chopped or shaved with tender understanding before they're shown the oven. Semolina cake relaxes into a syrupy, citrusy crumble in the mouth.

Chef Yiannis Kasidokostas is a recent immigrant, with a background in Athens fine-dining. He keeps most dishes simple and rustic, but there's a lightness of touch and deft sense of timing that is particularly noticeable in the seafood dishes. Salmon (part of a $68 feed-me feast) is pan-fried then roasted and served atop lightly pickled onions and fennel. The fish is outstanding - skin crisp, flesh rich and firm yet flaky. Whole sardines are wrapped in vine leaves and grilled; they're oily, salty and proudly fishy.

A salad of foraged weeds.
A salad of foraged weeds.Jesse Marlow
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Eating what's around means the same ingredients turn up over and over again. We had fennel on the pippies, with the sardines and the salmon; I'm a fennel fan and would happily have had it with dessert, too, but not everyone will feel the same way.

A salad of foraged weeds was my favourite dish, and actually made me feel jealous of the Cretan goats that get to munch on chickweed, marsh greens, wild rocket and sorrel whenever they like, though I'm sure they don't enjoy them with an olive oil dressing, beetroot and a crumbling of cheese made from their own sweet milk.

Elyros has substantially refurbished the old bank that recently housed Magic City. It's a two-part restaurant with panelled windows separating dining room from wine bar. The building is stately with marble-topped tables, Cretan urns and a Grecian blue ceiling. Elyros is certainly aiming to win the trust of the locals with a stealthy campaign of welcome and good cooking, but there's more to this place. It's an education about another Greece, other grandmothers, and a showcase of a place that finds humble bounty in the everyday.

THE LOW-DOWN
The best bit …
We've never seen anything quite like this in Melbourne.
The worst bit … Fitting food on smallish tables.
Go-to dish … Wild leaves salad, $12.

How we score
Of 20 points, 10 are awarded for food, five for service, three for ambience, two for wow factor.  
12
 Reasonable 13 Solid and satisfactory 14 Good 15 Very good 16 Seriously good 17 Great 18 Excellent 19 Outstanding 20 The best of the best

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Dani ValentDani Valent is a food writer and restaurant reviewer.

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