Thame Out The complimentary magazine for the Thame area
Fancy something a bit different for your takeaway meal? What about some wonderful Greek cuisine from Mezemas. And all delivered to your door.
Mezemas is a home-delivery business, providing fully prepared restaurant-quality Greek sharing feasts. All cooked, chilled and packaged in their kitchen in Chinnor, and delivered direct to your door.
No cooking required by you. Simply heat and eat when you are ready! Tablecloths, napkins, menu and music are all provided. This is essentially an authentic Taverna dining experience in the comfort of your own home, serving the finest quality Greek food.
The Meze Feast Box is perfect for families or for hosting friends.
Mezemas can cater for larger dinner parties, birthdays and other celebrations. They also supply a number of local businesses looking for something a little different for corporate functions and entertaining.
The set menu is designed to provide a variety of flavours and dishes, like a Greek tasting menu. In fact, the name Mezemas is inspired by the word ‘Meze’ – a style of eating which is an important part of Greek culture and consists of lots of different plates of food – much like Tapas in Spain.
The Feast Box contains 13 dishes, including dips, olives and Greek pitta bread. Some of the favourites are proving to be Pastitsio (often called ‘Greek lasagne’ – rich and creamy with nutmeg and bay), Tirokeftedes (deep-fried cheese balls – full of tangy feta and melt-in-the-mouth), Lemon Potatoes (slow roasted in lemon & olive oil dressing and scattered with Greek oregano) and Gigantes (giant butterbeans in our own tomato sauce with lashings of dill).
The full menu can be found on the website. (It is also provided in the Box).
Every meal is freshly prepared by Mezemas during the week and delivered to Thame and surrounding areas every Friday. Customers simply book online at www.mezemas.co.uk and they take care of the rest. Orders need to be in by Tuesday midnight for delivery the same week, although you can order as far in advance as you like, which is useful for important occasions!
Mezemas is a small family business run by Panny Skrivanos. As well as cooking, Panny also delivers the Feast Boxes himself. “It’s lovely to meet customers face-to-face, and to receive the pictures and stories of parties, birthdays, friends & family gatherings enjoying our food,” says Panny.
As you can see from the photograph above, Panny doesn’t look typically Greek but in fact his father’s side of the family is from Chios in the North Aegean. “It’s a beautiful island with great food culture and recipes that are slightly different to elsewhere in Greece. This is how I grew up eating – sitting with family members around a table covered in delicious Greek dishes, and all of us sharing food, stories, and laughter”, adds Panny.
The aim of Mezemas is to share this way of eating with customers, they provide a variety of food so there’s hopefully something for everyone.
Panny loves to read the feedback from families where children, teenagers, parents and grandparents alike have all loved different dishes, and have all had a great dining experience.
“I was lucky enough to have several inspirational home cooks in my family – in particular my Yia Yia (grandmother!) and Thea Stavroula who were just amazing. My quality control benchmark for Mezemas is to ask myself whether it tastes like the food they made and whether they would be proud”.
Many of the dishes Panny includes in the box are actually regional in origin. The island of Chios is close to Turkey and the historic proximity to the Spice Trail resulted in the inclusion of flavours and spices which you don’t often find elsewhere in Greek cuisine. Some dishes even bear their history in the name. For example, many years ago some of Panny’s ancestors lived in Smyrna (now Izmir, Turkey) and recipes Mezemas include like Soutzoukakia Smyrnaki (Smyrna-style spiced beef meatballs) travelled with them to Chios and further afield in the early 20th century. For Panny it’s important to promote and preserve these wonderful dishes. Dishes that have stood the test of time.
Panny is proud of his Greek heritage and passionate about Greek food. After several years working in offices in London, it was clear that something was missing in terms of job satisfaction. In 2015, having seen the rise in popularity of street food offerings, Panny took the decision to follow his dream and open a food business. “When I originally set up, we had great success as The Souvlaki Brothers, a street-food trailer catering for local events and festivals, before opening a busy little takeaway in Oxford’s Covered Market,” says Panny.
“But I always held a passion to broaden this offering and provide the best quality Greek food experience in the UK. I wanted to recreate those wonderful home-cooked flavours I had grown up with, authentically prepared and presented with care and attention to detail,” he adds.
Judging by all the positive feedback, especially from their Greek customers, it’s lovely to hear that Mezemas are certainly achieving that.
In fact, feedback so far suggests that, even though many people visit Greece each year, not many get the chance to eat like the Greeks do. Panny’s customers have been delighted to discover some new food and new favourites, and Mezemas are delighted to provide a new home delivered food option for them.
Perhaps it’s time to go Greek this weekend.
Discover more at www.mezemas.co.uk
You can read more articles like this one in the latest edition of Thame Out.
