Ettore Botrini

The Training His formal education ran through Ecole Hôtelière de Lausanne, a starting point that gives his career its first clear line of discipline. Another formative room was Etrusco in Corfu, the family restaurant he managed, where cooking and memory could become part of the same working practice. That thread is most explicit at Botrini's Restaurant in Athens, where his food references personal memories and wider Italian culture. Before each course, cards are presented to explain the story behind the dish, making narrative part of the meal itself rather than an afterthought. The chef's own summary is brief and revealing: "My culinary style is a journey, it's a happiness." In his case, that journey moves between education, family, Corfu, Athens, and Santorini, with each address adding another branch to the same culinary family tree.

The Lineage Since 2011, he has been Executive Chef and owner of Botrini's Restaurant in Athens. In 2014, Botrini's earned one Michelin star in the Michelin Guide, an award attached to the Athens restaurant and to the personal-memory cooking that defines it. Selene in Fira, Santorini became another major chapter in 2021. There, he transforms Santorini ingredients into contemporary dishes while evolving the island's gastronomic scene, placing local material inside a present-tense language without severing it from place. Corfu remains part of the line. Culinary direction of Coryfo is entrusted to him, and the cooking there is known for transforming local memories into innovative and emotionally resonant dishes. The island where he managed the family restaurant returns not as nostalgia alone, but as a source of structure, flavor, and feeling. In Athens, he is also the chef associated with ORA by Ettore Botrini at One&Only Aesthesis. That work reimagines seasonal Mediterranean cuisine through a modern lens and celebrates fine Aegean ingredients, extending his map from personal memory to the broader sea around Greece.

The Table At his Athens restaurant, Before Fasting is described as calf tail prepared to a traditional recipe from Trappist monks. The dish gives the table a monastic reference point, precise and historical, within a menu already built around stories delivered course by course. Cycladic Fish Tavern, another dish from the same kitchen, is described as a gutsy mix of langoustines, mussels à la marinière and vegetables. Its title points toward island eating, while its composition brings shellfish, sauce, and vegetable detail into one compact idea. At Coryfo, Corfiot bourdeto giouvetsi features seafood "stones" and handmade manestra pasta. Pastitsada is transformed there into a rich spiced sauce over slow-roasted organic chicken breast, taking a named Corfiot reference and giving it a new form without erasing its origin. Across these tables, the pattern is consistent: education gives the framework, family gives the emotional source, and each place supplies its own ingredients and memories.