The Banquet of The Roman East Empire

A five-wave Byzantine dinner of empire, faith, fire, wine and forgotten flavours, served as a living banquet from the Roman East tonight.
About this Event

The Banquet of the Roman East is a five-wave journey through the food, faith, fire and memory of Byzantium.

Hosted by chef and culinary historian David Tsirekas, the evening unfolds not as a standard entrée, main and dessert, but as a sequence of waves. Each wave brings food, wine and story together, with David introducing each course through a short talk on the history, ingredients, rituals and cultural meaning behind the dishes.

Wave One begins at the edge of the table.
This opening wave sets the foundations of the Byzantine world through the foods of preservation, trade, land and sea. It is the world of cured fish, legumes, olives, pickles, wild greens, bread, oil and the sharp intelligence of ancient flavour. Simple food, yes. Basic, absolutely not.

Wave Two moves into the life of the city and the church.
Here the meal begins to show how fasting, feasting, markets, monasteries and daily necessity shaped the table of the Roman East. These are dishes built from restraint and patience, where grains, pulses, vegetables, herbs and oil become something deeper than survival food. This is where discipline starts getting delicious.

Wave Three brings fire to the centre.
The smoke rises, the pace changes, and antikristo-style roasting becomes the anchor of the wave. Meat is cooked slowly around flame, not rushed, not hidden, not pretending to be delicate. It is food as spectacle, as gathering, as ceremony, and as the oldest argument for standing near a fire with a cup in your hand.

Wave Four follows the routes of empire.
This wave moves through spice, sauce, preservation and the movement of flavour across the Mediterranean, the Black Sea, the Levant and beyond. The Byzantine table was never sealed off from the world. It absorbed, argued, traded, borrowed and transformed. Like every great food culture, it was a glorious thief with better manners.

Wave Five closes with sweetness, grain and memory.
The final wave looks at the older Mediterranean love of layered pastry, nuts, honey, fruit, wheat and ritual sweets. These dishes carry echoes of ancient offerings, village tables, ceremonial feasts and the stubborn human need to finish with something that feels like blessing, even if everyone is already full.

Each wave will be paired with wine, served alongside the food to carry the journey forward and frame the flavour of each part of the evening.

This is a banquet built around story, not nostalgia. It is about empire, faith, trade, migration, hunger, pleasure, survival and the shared human instinct to gather around a table and make meaning out of food.

Five waves. Five courses. Wine included. One night only.