From the strongest "aprons" of Athenian cuisine and not only, Food & Beverages manager to Master Chef, restaurant owner and the type of person with whom you feel you can discuss (and eat) anything.

He doesn't have a cooking-since-I-can-remember background at all. "I neither followed my grandmother in the kitchen nor my mother. I never went to the Sunday tables because I usually worked on Saturday nights, so I slept in." He was a musician. He played drums in a band and wanted money. The first dish he made was a salad. "I do not remember. I went into a kitchen for a living and made a Caesar." Cooking entered his life quite by accident. At Hooters. "Around 2004-05, I found myself in the kitchen of the shop in The Mall." That's where the germ stuck. "I liked what I was living at that time." He liked this "working class hero", as he would say. "I was also influenced by American bands where all these guys over there were playing and at the same time working in Starbucks-type places."

Now it doesn't work anymore. He only cooks. "There came a point in 2008 when I had to choose between the band and the restaurants. I liked both equally, but it didn't work out." It has made several attempts to reconnect. "Now, with the old wolves, let's play again together." But he always spoils it himself as he has no time at all.

At first, he found cooking a straightforward subject. "I was delusional while others told me how long it takes. Cooking is an art; it has a challenging working environment, but that's it." That's what he believed. "It's a difficult job, and I don't even understand the physical part that breaks you down over the years, especially when you work something like 15 hours a season." He began to realize the magnitude of the difficulty of this job when he started to take on administrative things as well. "In terms of how to coordinate and organize something, I found them dark, while by nature, I have the part of a leader; I like it." He will say that he has always come forward since he was a child, and he will continue. "You are dealing with many different people; the bigger the project, the more difficulties will arise." We are in Simul; he points to the space around him and says, "Here, there are 22 of us. Each of us wants our way. I'm not the type of 'I say this, and that will happen, fool'. He tries to keep everyone happy. "In the context that is not negative for the business." He stops his thought for a moment. It is challenging to manage personnel. "That's why we have to get out of our minds this chef, chef, chef, that means his random." That chefs don't cook. "Yeah, they might not be cutting onions. They don't make pasta, but this whole thing to have satisfied owners, customers, employees, and everything is right is so difficult that you don't have time to cook." If you have a few free hours, "you're so physically and mentally exhausted that you can't cook."

With the discipline the kitchen requires, it has no problem. When something comes to his mind, he will do anything to achieve it. "The hardest thing about it is when you work with acquaintances and friends, I've made that mistake."

"The greatest difficulty of all that I face daily and crash on is business. Being a cook and a businessman simultaneously are two contradictory things. The cook wants good raw materials; the businessman wants cheaper raw materials and higher zeta. So there is a battle inside me that never stops." And there is no winner.

Travels from the internet inspire the dishes he makes. "I love books; I like to flip through them and look. However, whatever you google, you will find it. Whatever combination you thought of, someone else will have done it first. The most interesting thing in the situation is to filter and apply your style to what you have seen." And check that it fits the store you are in. "I might have tried in Brazil a fantastic recipe with ants; I can't bring ants to Kolonaki." A prescription from AI utopia would not take. I'll get some ideas. A long time ago, I saw a combination of sweet potato and basil in a Jamie Oliver book, and I'm not ashamed to say it works well." He adapted it; he made it. "It is bad for me that you and I make a dish without any change to go and present it as mine." If they give the same materials (weighed), the same steps, all the same to five different people, he believes that "The result will be different. The cook pours out his soul."

The strangest dish he has tried was in Barcelona. "At a creative tapas bar, we had only eaten the cock's leg cooked with miso." It was special. It was also exceptional in texture. An even weirder one was "Something crayfish with a hare's brain." And he still needs to travel to Asia.

TV for Nikos started because he wanted to be able to maintain the shop. "I had no desire to go out on the glass." However, it stuck, and now he loves it. "Master Chef is a big part of my life and has been for the last seven years." He has many hours of preparation behind him. "We can watch an episode and say they cooked five things, but it takes hours to find people who will frame the teams; it has a search in the recipes." Remember, it's a shop. "It has invoices; there is a certain cost that I can spend." "We have to find the guests, find the places where the children will go to cook and how they can cook there. The project manager may think the children will cook by falling out of a plane. I'll have to find a way to do that." Next, he must order the materials. To set up. The replica plates we see in the game are all his.

"I'm thinking of things that come out because we're cooking them at that time, too, with the same utensils and ingredients." His time is more urgent than he is. He finds the final trio, apart from various contingencies, such as the one with Giovanni's departure. He's one of the best players to ever come through competitions, and he came 8th because he had a bad day. None of us believed it." You can see who will stay from the middle and after the competition. "You have to spend five months in the cheetah and think, train your mind to find recipes from scratch. It's tough." Many good cooks who cannot stand confinement and this psychological pressure "give up".

Amongst all that he does, is teaching at Le Monde's cooking school. "Perception, mindset, understanding. To me, those three are far more important than learning how to cut an onion." He has acquaintances older than him who wanted to avoid becoming chefs. "They are cooks in hotels, they get a good standard salary, and they are fine." Only some people are for everything, he will say. "And we who don't know what we're chasing, I don't know where we'll end up."

He considers himself lucky for the staff and the lack thereof that has been discussed for the last two years. "Fortunately, at Simul, we have stable staff. Of course, we treat them not as spare parts but because we want to, very well. Both salary-wise and regarding the five-day week, their leaves, gifts, and allowances." Of course, the climate in the middle is also perfect. "We have guys here who have been here for four and five years. Our two main waiters have been here since the restaurant's first day. The same is happening in the kitchen." Beyond that, "the problem of finding staff in this country is enormous." As to why, he answered that "without wanting to belittle anyone, the unfair competition between Mykonos and Santorini is clearly to blame. When the cook I have here gets 800 euros because that's what he's worth, and on those islands, he gets 3000, I will go too." Even in Mykonos, however, they have a problem now. "They have 500 euros for those who have to take it. Because now, nobody goes for 500 euros". In 2013, he took over a five-star hotel as a consultant, "and I received 1200 euros. It's the attitude, baby if you want it all now."

Regarding the service part, it is because not many people have it as their main job; it is usually done by students or part-time. This forces them, and they do well, to hunt for better pay. People who want a career in service or training, of which 95% of servers are unskilled, have patience by looking at their resumes first.

It is the period when his cell phone is broken by business people who are looking for people for the kitchen. "Certainly, I don't know if we have enough cooks to serve the country's stores this summer. It's infinite."

He tries to make most of the products he uses in his kitchen Greek. "I have never said that I cook Greek cuisine. I try to make my products Greek and most of the time, they are much more expensive, but I buy them because they give me the desired result. For example, I will buy the tomato for 3-3.5 euros, it is tragic, but I will do it". The most significant problem currently in Greece is that "there is no distribution network. This 3 euro tomato will either be sent to me by bus, and maybe it will come melted, or they will tell me to get it, or someone will get sick and won't be able to bring it to you, and other such issues that no one talks about. Leave the financials, we will find it; you can bring it to me on time, in the same quality and cover me if something happens". Athens is now starting to live off gastro tourism. "For so many years, I think we were selling the sun, the sea, the islands, the country house and the calamari, which are very nice but nice when made carefully."

He sees the "concept" prevailing in the Greek focus in the next five years. "I'm glad to see these all-day restaurants with huge lists of 70 dishes each and pasta and sushi, and everything goes bust." It is crucial because that way, everyone does what they know how to do well. "He specializes in this. We all know by now that Antonis Drakularakos makes sushi. We know it's the best thing to do. Don't go and open something similar next to him." He follows the same tactics in his shops. His new acquisition, Nido, has nothing to do with Simul. "It's a tapas bar that has its concept." He would also like everything to become even more specialized. "That I'm going to eat the best prime rib there."

For himself, in the next five years, he wants to calm down a bit. "From the new year, we intend to open a restaurant on the island and spend six months on the island and here." It doesn't bother him. He likes it. "That's why we're fighting and staffing our teams with people who have supported us so that it can be sustainable." Of course, the band is also in the plans, but he wanted to mention it as a dream. Let's drum to that!

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