Photos by Jennifer Roberts for The Globe and Mail. Read Chris Nuttall-Smith's full review of Mamakas here.
The chef
Chris Kalisperas, it turns out, is a very good chef. His parents are from Cyprus. He’d been trapped in third-tier corporate restaurants for the better part of his career.
The room
The restaurant is long and narrow, a corner space with pine floors and whitewashed walls and polished copper pots hanging in the kitchen, all glowing warm incandescent from patio lights. The Greek words for “market and general store” are hand-lettered on the front window – the same logo that was on Mr. Tripi’s grandparents’ first store in Athens, after the war.
The food
Get all the dips, the smelts, eggplant, halloumi, horiatiki, a grilled fish and the lamb (and maybe also the chicken) and some dandelion too. And dessert.