BIG FAT GREEK FEAST

Hellenika is returning to Miami Marketta for an epic lunch and we can already smell the saganaki sizzling

SERVING up to 500 people a banquet in the street sounds like pandemonium for most hospitality head honchos, but Hellenika owner Simon Gloftis is exhilarated by the idea.

“It’s sort of like organised chaos,” Simon laughs.

“I’ve been doing it for so many years now, I like that feeling of, ‘Could this go under? Are we going to be all right?’

“For the lamb alone, we’re going to be cooking near 150 lamb shoulders. Everyone basically has to get their dish within about five minutes of each other. There’s a challenge there … I love it.”

Back for a second year, the Hellenika Long Lunch will occupy a laneway at Miami Marketta on August 26 for an afternoon of Greek fare and festivities.

Guests can expect to be eating a tweaked Hellenika signature banquet — think chargrilled octopus, roast lamb shoulder, whole snapper, dips and dolmades — with flowing beer and wine, and entertainment from a live Greek band.

“We take over a laneway at Marketta and we bring the whole Hellenika team over — the whole kitchen team, the whole floor team,” Simon says.

“It’s a really good day, we’ve got a Greek band from Brisbane. When it starts off, everyone has a few drinks, and then the dancing happens.

“We basically do the Hellenika signature banquet, that’s all the dips, the saganaki cheese, the octopus, the whole fish, the lamb, the whole lot.

“The octopus is always really, really popular. The whole fish is on again this year — that’s a winner.

“The lamb, that’s our signature, the lamb and the Greek salad, that’s pretty hard to beat.”

Simon says tickets are selling quickly, with about half of this year’s guestlist made up of return Long Lunch customers.

“The good thing is there’s about 200 people coming this year that came last year, which is a really good sign they must have had a good time,” Simon says. “It will sell out, it’s just a matter of what day.”

Between running two prestigious Gold Coast restaurants and hosting a feast in the streets, Simon is also expecting to open a second Hellenika in Brisbane next month.

“At the moment I’m concentrating on Hellenika and Nineteen (at the Star), but Hellenika in Brisbane will be open about the end of September,” he says.

“I’m so pumped. I can’t wait to show everyone.”