Refugee Food Festival in Athens

In the occasion of the World Refugee Day held on June 20th, this year Athens is hosting the second edition of the Refugee Food Festival. The first one was organized in Paris in June 2016 where 11 Persian restaurants opened their doors to host guest chefs, and due to its success, this year was proposed again as a European edition: from the 15th to the 30th of June the festival passes through different European cities such as Lyon, Florence, Madrid, Brussels and many more.

This festival is a great initiative to combine the interest in traditional cuisine with the urgent need of integration felt in many European cities where the refugees settled to start a new life; and food, as many of you know, it is always a good occasion to bring people together. For this reasons, during the festival, five restaurants in Athens offer the opportunity to five different displaced chefs to perform their cooking skills to an extended audience.

The guest chefs come from Lebanon, Syria, Somalia, Iran and Afghanistan and through this festival they have the opportunity to do a step forward in their social and professional integration in their host country, and at the same time to spread the taste of the Middle Eastern and African cuisine around Europe.

Barshank Haj Younes, arrived in Greece one year ago, is hosted by the restaurant Seychelles to cook his traditional Syrian-Kuridsh dishes. He prepares hummus, moutabal (eggplant salad), lamb, freekeh, bulgur and many more deliciacies all spiced with the guaranteed cumin.
Younes and Fotis Fotinoglou, the Greek head chef of the restaurant, join their cooking talent and cooperate together in the small kitchen of. As Fotinoglou says it "We're here today to say that in cooking, in the kitchen, there are no differences. We're all the same, we're all human,".

So do not miss this opportunity and enjoy the last day of the Refugee Food Festival in Athens at the IT Restaurant with Reza Golami and his Afghan cuisine!