Gikas Xenakis

Technical footing came first at Le Monde Culinary School, where the basics of the craft were built before service pressure entered the picture. The first professional stage followed as a placement student / trainee at Five-star hotel in Crete, where the kitchen would have demanded speed, discipline, and the ability to learn by doing. Further refinement came in Athens, first as chef at Spondi and later as chef at Boscetto.

Each post added a different kind of kitchen discipline: pace, standards, and the daily repetition needed to turn ingredients into something with a clear point of view. The result is a style formed by both home and training, with tradition treated as a working material rather than a fixed script. Since 2012, Xenakis has held the position of Head Chef at Aleria Restaurant. That length of time matters in kitchen work: it gives a chef room to sharpen decisions, settle a rhythm, and build consistency across service after service. The role has become the place where his early influences and professional training meet in practice.

Modern Greek cuisine is the frame, with traditional Greek food kept in view and adjusted through a personal hand. For Xenakis, the point is not rupture but calibration: preserving recognition while changing the shape enough to make it his own. The cooking stays close to its source while moving with a contemporary register. He has described the physical demands of kitchen work without polish: “Since I started working in the kitchen I have doubled my weight.”

It reads as a blunt inventory of the job’s demands—long hours, constant tasting, and the cumulative strain of service. He has also spoken candidly about the risk of training before the work proves itself: “I was actually angry about that and I told my parents they could be wasting money on a course that would lead to nothing.” The remark is useful because it names the uncertainty that often sits at the start of the trade, before the repetition of kitchen work turns doubt into practice.

Gikas's honors include Toques d’Or, Golden Caps, and Greek Cuisine Awards. These awards sit alongside a career built on consistency and a direct relationship to Greek culinary tradition, rather than on theatrics. In Xenakis’s kitchen, the familiar is worked carefully, then adjusted just enough to register as current without losing its source.