With 100% Rhodian ingredients and a smile on its lips, the “Paranga” Culinary Workshop revives the Greek combined with the Rhodian tradition and raises the gastronomic bar to extremely high levels. A beautiful couple opened this Greek restaurant in 2006 in the village of Apollonas, a rural village full of olive groves in the place where the old club of Italian officers used to be, in order to promote Greece to the ends of the world through gastronomy and hospitality and -of course- unique culinary skills.
Yannis Efthymiou, with his Apollonian wife, created their own tradition, which constantly brought new visitors. The deliciousness of their dishes is due to their mothers and aunts who showed them the traditional “tricks” to make the food delicious, while they took scales, paper and pencil and recorded the recipes accurately, which they measured with spoons and cups.
The food and all the ingredients are of their own production from the broths and breads to the olive oil. From day one, only fresh ingredients are handled in their kitchen, sourced from as close to ground zero as possible. This in international culinary parlance is zero km, which means that everything is produced within a small radius of the core, the kitchen where it is cooked.
Entering the interior of the restaurant, the three wood-fired ovens dominate the row of three ovens that prepare the delicious food that is made with passion for the guests and served in painted, clay plates with touches of Rhodian folklore… As Yiannis himself says: “Depending on bookings, we keep the wood-fired ovens open. If we have a lot of people then they all work, however, someone is always left burning because some of our food likes to stay on the fire for hours. To cook slowly and nicely.” Some dishes that stand out on the menu are the Rhodian fava, here paired with lamb liver stew, chewy goat stew, goat capama with beans or chickpeas, caravolos yajni, rife with potatoes in a makeshift mud pot, goat liver with lemon and long smell.
The comments of visitors about Yiannis are countless. Some characterizations of him are that John is beyond contemporary. A cook ahead of his time. At the same time, the service is family oriented with warm smiles. “Paranga” has also become known in international guides with hundreds of reviews, where 96% give a rating of excellent and only 2% very good.
The main advantage of the restaurant is its year-round operation, making the extension of the season a reality and demonstrating that beautiful Rhodes is not only visited for holidays in the summer. And it is a restaurant that the locals also choose.
For the perfection of the visitor’s experience, at the end, the sweet cheese pie with myzithra, grapes, sesame and nuts are offered as a dessert to sweeten the way back with the memory.
Every day in “Paranga” a delicious film is played true and honest as is the vision of John and his wife. “We just cook like we would at home, like our mothers and grandmothers did for so many years,” he says. The key foundations in this tradition are truth, authenticity, simplicity and timelessness. The advice of many visitors is for each of us who visit the island of Rhodes not to miss this experience of tasting this Rhodian food and getting to know the “Giannis” that we all know.
The “Paranga” is located at the entrance of the village of Apollo, in the place where in the past the Italian officers’ club was housed and the families Efthymiou and Sentonas, as other guardians of tradition, offer to every visitor the authentic flavors of the Rhodian cuisine. The land of the Apollonians provides the raw material. The people there, with great care, create special flavours that remind us of our childhood, when mum’s wood-fired oven filled the neighbourhood with aromas! Read more about “Paranga” in Apollo, the restaurant, the kitchen workshop, see the restaurant’s menu and contact them !
A taste, a scent can bring back memories from the past. So by learning the techniques and the little secrets of previous generations, the aim is to experience this through taste, image and scents. It puts back on the table old recipes such as caravoles, wood-fired dishes baked in a wood-fired oven on manatzuki and breads on ascino and myrtle! He always uses pure ingredients and prefers local products. The food is served in pots and pans, as Yannis Efthymiou collaborates with Rhodian potters who curate the dishes, while for good wine he collaborates with the village winemaker and everything is cooked with care by the gastro-artists of Paranga. The decor of the restaurant is traditional, reminiscent of another old era, dominated by stone and wooden constructions by the village carpenter.
Yannis Efthymiou, who as he says “we rely on the simplicity but also on the dynamics of our selected products”, welcomes his guests with warm trahanosoup and the table is set with a variety of handmade breads, placed on glyphoni, ascino, myrtle branches and alesfakia, which give their special aroma to the rustic bread. Seasonal greens and herbs with salt blossom and extra virgin olive oil from the olive groves of Profitis Ilias, eggplant bourekakia, pitaroudia, yaprakia and a delicious anthotyro wrapped in a rustic leaf and served with sweet wine grape make their appearance and steal the impression.
The saloon smells of Greece, with the visitor being asked to choose between traditional dishes cooked in the wood-fired oven, in the chuka or on the charcoal.
Kapamas with rich stuffing, goat with beans or chickpeas, pastasota with handmade pasta and myzithra, caravoli yahni, local meats and other flavours based on authentic Rhodian recipes that are perfectly combined with wines from the vineyards of Rhodes.
The spoon sweet, neratzi or grape, comes from the sky, in closed lanterns hanging from the ceiling and land artfully on your table to contribute to the sweet memories of your visit.
The welcoming space of “Paranga” made of stone and wood, decorated with painted dishes and touches of Rhodian folklore, blends perfectly with the wonderful natural landscape of the village and invites the visitor to taste recipes taken from the soul…
Paranga is a proud member of the Aegean Cuisine!
Greek Restaurant Cookery “Paranga”…
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The village of Apollo of Rhodes is located on the southeastern side of the hill of Prophet Elias, just 50km from the capital of the island, Rhodes, and very close to the highest mountain of the island, Attavryros! In a green area surrounded by wild pine trees, cypresses and the local olive groves that give every year excellent quality olive oil, Apollonas emerge with an area of about 71 square kilometers, an altitude of 330 meters and a total population of 1005 inhabitants. According to the most popular interpretation, the name of the village seems to come from the ancient Greek god Apollo.
