Varoulko: Ship on dry land

New Year’s Eve and new years day are unique holidays in Greece and a great motive to celebrate. The dawn of the new year marks a new beginning and a chance to fulfill your goals and wishes. And what’s better than celebrating the coming of 2011 by dining in one of Athens’ and Greece’s best restaurant? Varoulko restaurant, which has functioned for 23 years, is a fish oriented restaurant downtown with a wonderful view of the Parthenon. Lefteris Lazarou, Varoulko’s chef, the first Greek chef to possess a Michelin star, transfers his “sea memories” from being head chef on cruise ships to dry land. Thus, the proposed New Year’s Eve menu presents 5 dishes inspired from the sea, a meat dish and playful desserts.
The dinner started with a simple yet delicious sea snack; clams in a broth with avocado, spiced with coriander. The oily, smooth avocado bound perfectly with the chewy, meaty texture of the clams. The used lemon juice added all the necessary acidity and the coriander gave an exotic spiciness to the broth binding with the avocado.

Clams with avocado and broth spiced with coriander
The soup with topinampour artichokes and fish eggs had a perfect texture and consistency with an earthy sent. Instead of the usual cream fraiche or cream, the soup had an olive oil finish making it more Greek.  The crunchy flyinh fish eggs gave a different dimension to the texture. 

For the third dish, we were served an excellently executed fresh sea bass tartar, fully flavoured, aromatic and delicate with chopped red onion adding a refreshing and spicy anise tone. The olive pate added a gently bitter yet strong and earthy tone and the slightly sweet sauce, underneath the tartar, completed the dish.

The sea bass tartar

Next dish, a langoustine and a ravioli filled with truffle paste. A beautiful to the eye dish decorated with the head of the langoustine while its body settled on top of two fresh ravioli stuffed with truffle paste. Langoustine’s meat was minced and cooked with beef broth giving all the meaty, full and savory flavour to the sea dish completing it.

The langoustine with the ravioli stuffed with truffle paste

The fifth dish was a juicy grouper fillet perfectly cooked on top of an aromatic and ethereal, cooked fennel, smooth on the outside and crunchy inside. The red pepper sauce gave a quite sweet note and the black sesame seeds gave a crunchy twist to the smooth fish and lifted the earthy feeling of the pepper. The dish was completed by a few lavender leafs for a nice colour contrast.

The grouper filler with the fennel and the red pepper sauce

Next, a meat dish, with a few fillet slices of T – bone steak, tender and juicy, accompanied by a fine risotto with mushrooms.

The meat dish and the mushroom risotto

Before the dessert, we were offered a mouth-refreshing cotton candy, that brought many childhood memories back to our mind, decorated with edible cold leafs and sugar coated mint leaves. The perfect mignardises.

The mignardise

The dessert, a light vanilla cream with great consistency, with sweet and sour fresh raspberries and a refreshing mint leave, on top of a quite bitter champagne jelly was accompanied by a lemongrass ice cream that brought to mind a gentle lemonish feeling. The crunchy, sugar coated raspberries and the minced almond comlpeted the dish.

The dessert

Although Lefteris Lazarou prefers cooking fish delicacies, and he seems to get along  better with fish rather than meat, he successfully combines seafood with earthy flavours giving an interesting twist and unrevealing  the true potential of the sea.

Source: http://www.theworlds50best.com/varoulko-ship-on-dry-land/6707