It was a cold and damp winter night in Wellington on Thursday, so the perfect time to imagine being in a sunny Greek taverna with the prospect of some lovely food. This year, one of our favourite places in town, Field & Green has created Bar Salonika, a pop up event with dishes from Salonika in Ottoman Greece. This is another interesting exploration by chef Laura Greenfield into the diaspora of Jewish cuisine, which we have the luck to experience in past Wellington on a Plate festivals. The food at Bar Salonika is a blend of the Spanish heritage of the Sephardic Jews who were expelled from Spain in 1492 and their adopted home in what was then the Ottoman Empire.
I want to say it was a bit like ‘tapas meets maze’ but that seems a bit of a simplification. The menu was printed on a sheet of paper that could be taken away, which was rather useful for me and this blog post! The little dog in the picture is I am sure modelled on the owners’ dog. Apologies for the quality of photos – I was enjoying the food too much!
We started with a couple of dips – my favourite taramasalata – and tarator, a cucumber and yoghurt salad like tzatziki. Both were really excellent versions, and served with Pan de Horiadaki, a Greek Jewish country bread. We actually ordered some matzo as well to finish off the dips. Our first wine was a Spanish wine Quinto de Couselo ‘Barbuntini’ Albariño which went well with the food.
We then moved on to nugada, meatballs in red wine and walnut sauce, megina, a beef and matzo pie (top left), fijolettes, green beans with tomato, garlic and celery leaves and keftike de patata, a potato and cheese croquette. It was all very good, with the pie in particular a standout dish. We had another wine from Spain Finca Bacara ‘Time Waits for No One’ Monastrell, a lovely fruity red.
As usual, we were too full for much dessert, but we did share a little dolce de prunes, a prune and Disaronno chocolate pot with walnuts that was sublime.
Find out more about Greek food and wine on this podcast from The Splendid Table or read this article on the Sephardic cuisine of Thessaloniki.
Entering this post into Natalie the Explorer’s coffee share.
You can find Thistles and Kiwis on Facebook, and also on Instagram @thistlesandkiwis. As for Twitter….am totally inactive these days. If you want to get in touch, email me on thistlesandkiwis@gmail.com
Thistles and Kiwis 
What an interesting food adventure.
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My oh my, the food looks good! Along with Italian, one of my favorites.
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It was good!
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What a great culinary adventure.
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I love greek food! It was way too long ago since I enjoyed some, I need to take care of that 🙂 Thank you for the inspiration!
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Hope you get some soon!
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The food looks amazing!
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The food looks good and your description of each course is mouth-watering. Thank you for linking up with #weekendcoffeeshare.
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We had a visit from our landlord yesterday. A lovely Singaporean woman. She showed me the garden and told me what she has planted there – I got stressed 🙂 I am not a gardener but now I live in a house with a garden full of fruit plants, berries, flowers – I hope I manage to keep them alive. She also told us that the restaurants in Wellington are way better than here in Christchurch. Based on the soup, cake and cookies she brought us, she knows what she is talking about…
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I’m sure you’ll start to enjoy the garden when the better weather arrives. Well, sitting in it for sure! There are certainly lots of places to eat here in Wellington, many of them very good. I can recommend twentysevensteps in Christchurch – we went there in October last year.
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Oh, I love Greek food and now I’m craving some! Actually, I would just like to sit in a restaurant and have a meal!
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You will be able to soon I am sure!
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Hi T&K, I’m always ready for Greek food. Here we have a newish restaurant which serves the most amazing, simple and wonderful greek salad I’ve ever had. They also make a great tabbouli and I struggle each time I’m there in deciding which I want more. Thanks for another great dining event.
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Thanks for stopping by!
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Yummmmm …. thank you for including us at the table!
Prune and chocolate … now that is not a combination I am familiar with …
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The dessert was really good – very smooth and rich tasting. We should have had one each 🙂
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So, the prune & chocolate were blended together? Sounds quite divine ….
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Yes it was so gorgeous. I hope they make it a permanent feature of their menu.
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