In a more than three-decade career, Angie Giannakodakis has not only been a great champion of Greek food and wine but also the art and craft of hospitality itself. She’s a true restaurant geek in the very best manifestation of that term, one who thinks deeply and philosophically about the industry and what it means to both customers and those who work in it.
First coming to prominence in Melbourne at two ground-breaking projects (The Press Club, Hellenic Republic) that dramatically shifted how Greek cuisine was perceived in Australia, Giannakodakis then expanded her role to restaurateur (with business partner Guy Holder) at Epocha, Elyros and, now, at Taverna. A love letter to family and culture at the site that formerly housed Hellenic Republic, Taverna amalgamates many of her core influences, from the site itself (professional) to a menu that includes her mother’s recipe for moussaka (personal) and a wine list with real estate increasingly populated by Hellenic labels and varieties (cultural).
With decades working both front-of-house and behind the scenes, Giannakodakis’s knowledge and love for hospitality is something of a given, but she is clear-eyed about it too, embracing the industry’s potential for creating beauty and a sense of community, while also recognising and acknowledging the hard, boring, repetitive parts that are essential to the success and longevity of any restaurant. She went to university (while still running her own restaurant) to study for an MBA as part of this belief that gaining solid knowledge of every aspect of hospitality allows for a holistic view that’s essential, not just in terms of her own business but for the industry as a whole.
Giannakodakis has run classes in restaurant etiquette, spent more than a decade working in restaurants in Greece, and during the pandemic helped spearhead Eat Forward Melbourne, an initiative designed to keep people employed in the industry and to provide meals for restaurant workers who lost their jobs to Covid. It speaks to the breadth of both her hospitality knowledge and her empathy, but also pegs her deep understanding of what the industry brings to life, be that introducing a customer to assyrtiko for the first time, mixing an inarguable Negroni or just having people leave her restaurants and go out into the world happier than they were when they arrived.
Find all finalists for the Gourmet Traveller Restaurant Personality of the Year Award here. To see the full list of winners in this year’s Gourmet Traveller Annual Restaurant Awards, head over here.
Past winners of the Restaurant Personality of the Year Award
- 2024: Sarah Baldwin
- 2023: Louise Radman
- 2022: Shannon Martinez
- 2021: Sharon Romeo
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