A ‘morning’ chat with seafood restaurateur Konstantinos Dalianis of To Barbounaki in Folegandros, Greece.

In September 2021, I visited the beautiful island of Folegandros in Greece, known for it’s charming chora (main town) and laid back vibe. And there I discovered a newly opened restaurant called To Bourbanaki. Bourbanaki, I believe, means mullet, as in the fish, not the hair style. Dinner was good and near the end, the chef popped out to greet us at our table. After some conversation over tuna tataki, I asked if the chef had time for an interview and he said that he was available the following morning. Great! When I asked him what time, he said noon. Time is relative and we’re on an island and it’s morning somewhere in the world at noon in Greece…

YT: Good morning, and thank you. First of all I would like to know about your background, where did you grow up?

KD: I grew up in Athens but I spent Easter, summer and winter holidays in the mountains of central Greece.

YT: When did you start to cook or get interested in cooking?

KD: It started many years ago, watching my grandmother cook. She would wake up at 6 am everyday to bake fresh bread. Everything would be ready at 8 am and we would wake up to the smell of freshly prepared food and all my cousins and I would come together and eat together. My grandmother had chickens and although I liked hanging about in the kitchen to watch her cook, I always made myself scarce and show up around 1 pm so I didn’t have to help her kill the chicken. Even now, my grandmother’s pita is the best, I’ve never had better.

YT: Fresh food aromas from the kitchen and your grandmother’s cooking were the main influences for you. When did you think that you wanted to be a chef?

KD: I realized I wanted to be a cook early. When I was 17 or 18 I signed up to work on an oil tanker and started out as a deckhand. But soon I realized that I needed to cook because we couldn’t eat the food.

YT: The food was not good?

KD: It was bad. The cook was Filipino, and trust me, I have met many great Filipino cooks but this guy was no good. Actually he had some problems with his wife so…

YT: Oh so his emotional state was translated into his cooking!

KD: Yes, cooking is from the heart. 

YT: If he had a bad day or a fight with his wife it equaled bad food or worse food?

KD: Yes exactly. I spoke to the captain and I said I can cook for us (crew), and he let me.

YT: Oh you started cooking on the ship first, when you were quite young.

KD: It started from there, and I spoke to the captain again on the second trip, and told him I want to give up and stop immediately, get off the ship. Otherwise, if he didn’t release me, I would jump and swim to shore. The next port of call was in Morocco and I disembarked there and that was the end of my experience as a cook on an oil tanker. They arranged for tickets and a taxi and gave me some money so I went from Cassablanca onto Rome. And this was the time when Vesuvius erupted and my flight was canceled and I was stuck in Rome. I had bought gifts to take back home, but I had to keep eating them because the flights continued to be delayed. Each time I checked it was canceled, canceled, canceled.

YT: It was an ordeal for you to get back to Greece, just like the Odyssey!! When you finally made your way back home what did you do?

KD: First I had to do military service, and for that I joined the navy. After I finished my duty and left the navy I enrolled into a cooking school, Etoile by Les Chefs, Institute of Hospitality and Culinary Arts in Athens.

And after that I started working in restaurants and hotels, some of them with michelin stars. I worked in canteens, cafes, in all types of jobs and I’ve worked in Mexican, Greek, & Italian restaurants and other ethnic cuisines. But I decided to stay with Greek cuisine and add a little touch and incorporate other influences.

YT: It seems to be working well for you so far. How did you get here to Folegandros? What brought you here?

KD: Actually, it’s a long story. You see, I am also a surf instructor. I met my girlfriend through surfing.

YT: What? You are certified surf instructor?

KD: Yes, in the winter everything is closed, very slow work wise and a friend  who has one of the best  surf schools in Greece (Kyma Surf School) called me and said ‘help me out and come make some money’. I wasn’t very busy so I went and taught classes there. And one day I met this beautiful girl who came to learn how to surf and we started talking, and then we exchanged numbers after a few days, and after that we started dating. She had a job lined up on a private yacht, but canceled her gig on the boat. After meeting me and sharing several meals, her parents googled me and then they offered us this restaurant space for us to run. So here we are.

YT: So she came back to her home island to work with you and run this place?

KD: Yes.

YT: Did they have a plan or a request for the kind of restaurant?

KD: They wanted a traditional Greek seafood restaurant, but I changed it a bit and made it my own.

YT: I see, they wanted traditional, like their restaurant, Araxe. Where we coincidentally had lunch. Here, you have traditional dishes on the menu but also the daily menu, and another monthly menu. Which menu reflects what you want to do?

KD: The daily menu is what I want to serve and it will get better and even better next year. Because you know, right now with the pandemic we are under staffed.

YT: Yes, everyone is and everything is complicated now with the pandemic. Despite that it was good. When did you open this restaurant?

KD: We opened this restaurant end of June, 2021.

YTR: Brand new and doing great! For the restaurant, do you procure local things grown in Folegandros?

KD: We try but there aren’t very many things grown on the island. We use local cheese, and capers that’s it. We have to get everything else from other places. And this is our biggest challenge. Quite often we don’t get the delivery for ingredients we need for a dish. Once I couldn’t get any coriander, I couldn’t get any for over a month. So I had to improvise and make changes I stopped including coriander in my menus altogether.

YT: You have to be flexible right, especially when you live on an island. You can’t say this is what i’m going to COOK because you’re dependent on so many things like the weather which affects so many aspects.

KD: Yes, too much rain and the produce won’t be any good or if it’s stormy the fishermen can’t go out and we won’t have fish.

YT: Where do you get your ideas and inspiration for the dishes that you create?

KD: It’s complicated, all in my head, always thinking. I have worked with many chefs that like Japanese food so I took some ideas from them, also I’ve taken ideas from a lot of books. And merge them sort of. I like comfort cuisine, I don’t like fine dining, the simpler fresh comfort food is close to me.

YT: Agreed! And do you go back to Athens often, perhaps to try new things or for inspiration? And when will you close the restaurant?

KD: Yes, I will, I miss my house.  I do like to try new things, and I’m after good food, not dictated by price or setting but by the quality of food. We may close end of September maybe, we shall see, it depends on reservations or the people on the island, if we have business we will stay open longer.

YT: You go back to Athens, travel a bit and then when do you come back to Folegandros?

KD: April, to prepare to reopen for the season.

YT: Did your girlfriend’s parents find out anything else about you when they googled you?

KD: Well, I was on Masterchef Greece (season 4).

YT: !!! How did that come about?

KD: One day I received a call to participate in Masterchef Greece. I had to ‘audition’ and cook something. They liked my food so I was selected to be in Masterchef.

YT: Wow.

KD: I didn’t make it to the end but after that I met my girlfriend and then I came here.

YT: What a journey! So what are your goals for the future?

KD: At present, I prefer to think about the now, not about the future nor the past. You end up dwelling in the past or dreaming about the future. I want to be thinking about what I’m doing now and think about a month ahead, otherwise I won’t be able to focus. And sometimes you talk about what you’ll do in the future and you never get around to doing it. So I prefer the now.

YT: Good luck to you chef and thank you so much for your time!

To Barbounaki Folegandros Chora, Folegandrou Square Antimasta, Folegandros 840 11, Greece +30-698-588-6675

*as of this writing To Barbounaki does not have a website, facebook or instagram page

*this place in Folegandros is not to be confused with Barbounaki by Papaioannou which is part of the Okyalos Restaurant Group, located elsewhere in Greece.