Prior to becoming a chef, David was a swim and water polo coach who during off season would work in kitchens in Australia and abroad.
In 1998 David was offered his sisters partnership at an inner west classic restaurant called Perama. His skills and knowledge of Greek cooking were very basic and his knowledge was primitive. David began his journey of understanding Greek cuisine by going back through history and reading ancient literary texts to help build the picture of where Greek cuisine had come from, what path it has travelled and how it has evolved to where it was then. In essence David’s Greek cooking depicts Greece through the ages, portraying elements of all these periods and influences both within its borders and the greater Greek Diaspora beyond. Perama got its first Sydney Morning Herald good food guide hat in 2001 and kept it until 2011 when he then moved to Xanthi in Westfields.
He continued the trend of doing Greek outside the box but with traditional foundations. At Xanthi David also received a hat each year until we finally closed the doors in 2014.
Next he helped in setting up a Greek Street Food concept in Kingsgrove called Kefi and was a catalyst of a wave of greek style street food to take off in Sydney and beyond. David next was offered the role as executive chef at Universal Hotels which includes in its stable , restaurant 1821 in the Sydney CBD since January 2015.
He had worked on the conception, the development and construction of 1821 and received multiple accolade’s since. Wanting to develop his passion for evolving and making Greek more accessible to the greater population, David went on to a more independent role in Consulting. His first role was consulting for a newly developed and modern inspired Greek restaurant called Avli in Chicago, USA. It opened in September 2018 and is scheduled to open its second venue in the Chicago CBD early next year taking Greek food to another level in the USA.
Currently he is Chef in Residence at Nostimo at The Greek Club in Brisbane, Zeus Steet Greek which has 21 venues nationally and is working on 2 new concepts at Brisbane Domestic Airport, coming outside his comfort zone and working on a project called The Lord Lamington which is a British/Australian style gastro pub, scheduled to open in mid July 2019.
The second of the Airport venues will be a wine bar called The Aviary. His knowledge of food, service, guest expectations and hospitality is second to none. In each and very venue he has held the rains in he has made this clear and he will continue to do so in every project he leads in the future.
