It's all Greek: the modern restaurants serving more than moussaka

From Greek tapas to an Athenian grill house and souvlaki street food, the UK has come a long way from rubbery halloumi and sad-looking salad

For decades, Greek food in the UK was rubbish. As a Greek Cypriot and long-time reviewer of Hellenic restaurants, I got used to stodgy flagstones of oily moussaka, curiously eggy hummus and halloumi you could cut into circles and top pencils with. At their best, the restaurants offering this stolid, carb-heavy tedium were so chintzy they could have doubled as doily museums. At their worst, their idea of “cooked to order” was “scooping it from under the battered saveloys in the halogen heater”.

But that’s all changing. In Lancashire’s family-run Olive Tree Brasserie (“Greek cuisine … with modern twists”), local kale is served with pan-fried cod, and salads combine kefalotiri cheese with hot-smoked Goosnargh duck breast and caramelised apples. In London’s Greek tapas joint Opso, there are souvlaki sliders, cheeses served with homemade rhubarb jam and slow-cooked lamb shank pepped up with lemongrass. Start smashing the plates here and you’re committing a culinary atrocity.