Dimitris, Hamilton

Where: Shop 5, 79 Beaumont Street, Hamilton

Prices: Breads, $7 to $10; entrees, $13 to $19; mains, $17 to $29; pasta $15 to $21; sides, $8; desserts, $10 to $15

Chef: Barry Meiklejohn

Hours: Monday to Saturday, 7am till late; Sunday, 7am till dusk

Vegetarian: One starter, one entree, one pasta, three mains

Bookings: 4940 0006

Bottom line: Meze, main, dessert for two without drinks, about $100

An Orthodox Church is there to nourish the souls of the members of the Hamilton Greek community. All they need now is a place to nourish the bodies; a place where old men can sit, drink ouzo and thick black coffee, gossip and play with their worry beads.

Georgia Raftopoulos and Dimitri Papias have created that ‘‘place away from home’’ that meets those needs in spades. Locals and newcomers alike are greeted like long-lost cousins. When Georgia is not in the kitchen

creating traditional Greek dishes and signature pastries and supervising the chef, she will be out front making sure every table is being looked after or sitting in a corner of

the dining room dealing with the paper work.

The food is a combination of home-style Greek and international restaurant fare with a few pasta dishes for

good measure. The dessert cabinet is an Aladdin’s cave of house-cooked pastries, patisserie-sourced baklava and other filo delights, and cakes from a local cook.

Dimitris mini mixed meze plate is a colourful tribute to the chef’s creativity. Tonight, Barry Meiklejohn has put together a plate that would be ample for a light lunch. There’s a bowl of creamy, finely shredded beetroot, two

moist keftedes (meatballs) fragrant with herbs; a hard-boiled egg is halved and topped with tatziki and tiny anchovy fillets; there’s a slab of squeaky, salty golden grilled haloumi beside a quenelle of intense tapenade. Two

small tomatoes are stuffed with risotto and plenty of mushrooms; and last but not least there are a couple of chicken livers resting on a pile of fennel salad with grilled capsicum and feta cheese sprinkled on top.

Main courses mix traditional with standard steak, chicken and fish dishes and a few pastas.

Tonight’s blackboard menu includes two of Georgia’s specialties; a well-executed moussaka and slow-cooked goat.

Now, I have had moussaka in Greece so oily you could fry fish in the excess; not so here.

Georgia bakes rather than fries the eggplant. The result is light and tasty with its topping of fluffy, golden be´chamel and layers of sliced eggplant, potato and meat sauce. A vibrant salad of tossed greens, sliced mushrooms,

cucumber, tomato, olives and feta is all that is needed as accompaniment.

A healthy pile of fall-apart goat in its own luscious tomato-based sauce is ladled over a large disc of boiled white rice. I don’t get the rice; the sauce includes ample carrot and potato and there’s a pile of perfectly cooked

green beans, broccoli, fennel and corn kernels at the side. Maybe it’s there to soak up the lovely sticky juices.

Georgia’s desserts are rustic and reflect the Greek passion for all things sweet. Crumbly shortcrust pastry encases tangy rhubarb, or guava and apple, or provides a base for a

creamy baked cheesecake. A garnish of glace fruits completes the sugar hit and all come with ice-cream, cream or both. There’s not enough room to try the

galaktoboureko, or any of the other syrupsoaked filo creations.

We will have to come back.