If you’ve had great contemporary Thai food in London over the past decade, there’s a good chance Nick Molyviatis had something to do with it. Originally from Greece, Molyviatis was head chef at Kiln when it was named the UK’s best restaurant at our National Restaurant Awards in 2018. He went on to play a key role in launching the original Plaza Khao Gaeng with Luke Farrell before partnering with Sirichai Kularbwong to relaunch cult Leytonstone Thai restaurant Singburi in a much larger Shoreditch site last year.
Yet Molyviatis has been trying to open a Greek restaurant since before the pandemic. After what was ultimately something of a false start working with David Carter on the launch of OMA and AGORA, he has finally realised that ambition.
Zylia opened around a month ago on Covent Garden’s Bedford Street and can already be considered a hit, winning praise for its straightforward but deeply authentic take on Greek and Greek Cypriot cuisine.
For Molyviatis, authenticity has meant resisting the temptation to bring techniques and flavours from the Thai kitchens that made his reputation. ‘No twists’ has become his guiding principle, with Zylia focusing on produce-led cooking and traditional recipes that reflect the food he grew up with rather than a modernised ‘London’ interpretation of Greek cuisine.
What’s it like returning to cooking Greek food after so long cooking Thai cuisine?
It can be difficult. I often find myself instinctively reaching for things like chillies, fish sauce and MSG. But I have told myself: ‘no twists’. I want to do a pure take on Greek cuisine. Greek and Thai food are very different. The flavours of Thai food are intense and I would not say the cuisine is particularly produce-led, whereas Greek and Cypriot food certainly are. I thought about those differences a lot because I developed the menu for Zylia at Singburi very early in the morning before the rest of the team arrived. They were very happy to have things like spanakopita and kleftiko for breakfast.
Tell us about the menu
It’s a very tight selection, which was partly dictated by the size of the kitchen. The menu starts with dips and breads before moving onto small plates like wild prawns saganaki, fried metsovone cheese croquettes and our spanakopita stack, which is a lighter, modern take on the traditional pie made with hand-stretched filo, leek, spinach and soft feta. That is probably the only dish we serve at Zylia that isn’t classical. Our larger dishes include sheftalia (Cypriot pork parcels wrapped in caul fat), souvlakia and milk-fed lamb shoulder kleftiko.
What else can diners expect from the menu as the restaurant develops?
We will be doing some specials and experimenting with things that are beloved in Greece but people may find a bit more difficult to understand here, like stuffed vegetables served cold. We want to do a plate of the day as a nod to places like Diporto (the cult Athens restaurant), which only offers a few dishes on any given day.
What does your business partner Barry Karacostas bring to the party at Zylia?
Barry grew up in London but is Greek Cypriot. We have developed the menu and wider concept together. He has a different view on Greek and Greek Cypriot cuisine to me. There are a lot of similarities between Greek and Cypriot food, but there are also some big differences. To take one example, Cypriot tzatziki is made with dried mint and lemon juice, whereas Greek tzatziki is made with fresh dill and vinegar, which makes it very different. We have the former on our menu here, so Barry won that one. Cypriots don’t really use marinades; meat is flavoured with salt and very little else. The menu is not ‘this is yours and this is mine’, but a representation of both countries. We have also done the Cypriot version of kleftiko, because it is Cyprus’s national dish. Purists would probably still say we have added too much – it is supposed to just be lamb, potatoes, salt and maybe some wine cooked for hours underground. We couldn’t find a hole in Covent Garden, so we do it in a combi oven.
How did this project come about?
I have been trying to launch a Greek restaurant since I left Kiln in 2019. I nearly signed for the Hoxton site that was Adam Handling’s The Frog. Given that the pandemic happened not long after, I’m very glad it fell through. There is also a world in which Singburi would have been a Greek restaurant, but Sirichai (Kularbwong, one of Molyviatis’s business partners at Singburi) and I decided it was best that our first project together was Thai because his parents needed a break after all those years and the restaurant needed to move from its old location. I have been discussing the possibility of a Greek concept at one of the Arcade locations for the past five years or so with Dipak Panchal (a director at Arcades Galore Holdings). I came close to being part of the line up at the first iteration of Arcade on Tottenham Court Road, but the pandemic put everything on hold. Instead, I ended up working with JKS, helping Luke Farrell launch Plaza Khao Gaeng, Bebek! Bebek! and Viet Populaire (which all at one point traded at Arcade). Throughout all this, Dipak and I stayed close and continued discussing projects, but then I started working with David Carter on OMA and AGORA.
Why was that such a short-lived relationship?
It wasn’t that short – I was involved for a year or so before it opened. David is a brilliant restaurateur and his restaurants are instantly recognisable because they offer a modern take on cuisine. That was part of the problem. I wanted to do something more traditional and more in line with what is served in Greece, rather than a ‘London’ Greek restaurant, which was the brief. So we decided to part ways. Not long after that Dipak got in touch and said I should meet Barry. That was about two years ago. We started discussing ideas, but then I was busy with Singburi, so once again it wasn’t quite the right time. Then he came back and it was the right moment. We finally went for it and delivered a project that had been discussed for years in about six months.
The restaurant is attached to Arcade Covent Garden and shares some of its facilities. What does that mean for operations?
It’s a standalone restaurant really. Most diners probably won’t realise we are part of Arcade until they go to the loos, which are shared. We receive deliveries through Arcade and have some refrigeration there, but the goal was always to make it feel like a completely different space, and I think we have achieved that.
How has Zylia been received?
Very well. This corner of Covent Garden is very busy these days and will probably be even busier when The Devonshire guys open their pub here. The area has always had lots of restaurants, but it’s now getting attention from more high-quality operators. We were actually looking around here when trying to find a site for Singburi, but there wasn’t much else happening at the time. We were busy anyway, but after the great review from Grace Dent in The Guardian we’ve been ten times busier. That hasn’t been easy to manage, but it’s a good problem to have. It’s a very small restaurant, he prep space is tiny and we only have room for a maximum of five chefs during service. Some days we are doing 250 covers in one day. It’s non-stop here.
Why do you think high quality takes on Greek food have taken off in London over the past few years?
I think Milos and Opso paved the way for a new wave of great Greek restaurants. They did the hard work and showed people there was much more to Greek food than what UK Greek restaurants had traditionally offered. More people who are interested in food are also going on holiday to Greece. It has an amazing food scene and remains relatively good value. There are lots of restaurants doing real local food as well as more contemporary interpretations. There are also far less tourist traps than there once were. In London, it’s nice to see a mix of homegrown operators, Greek operators and imports from places like Dubai. Hopefully it won’t be a bubble that eventually bursts.
Singburi has just turned a year old. How is it going?
It’s going well, but it’s a lot. It’s a big change from the previous Singburi because we are serving so many more people every week. The previous operation was very small and had a tiny team so none of the recipes were written down. It’s hard to get a whole brigade to recreate what is in your head so that has been a big adjustment for Sirichai. But we have been busy and hitting our targets. Having another high-profile restaurant, Legado, there has helped increase visibility, but it is a tough area: central but also slightly out of the way.