The Ultimate Greek Feast

Some meals stay with you long after the plates are cleared, and not just for how they tasted, but for who taught you to make them. Last year in Mykonos, I spent an afternoon in the hands of Sofia and Ana, two beautifully bossy, endlessly generous women from a local Mykonian catering company who came around to teach me a handful of their specialties. Sofia took me through the ins and outs of how to layer filo until it was exactly right. And Ana — the self-proclaimed queen of calamari (she was right!)— taught me hers, along with what might be the easiest and most ridiculously simple Greek dish I've ever brought to my own table: fava.

There's a particular kind of pleasure in building a menu around one ingredient and letting it do the talking. That's exactly what I did for a recent lunch at home, where fresh basil pesto became the vibrant thread running through everything on the table.

Basil is one of those herbs you can technically find year-round, but it's really in the summer months that it comes into its own - fuller leaves, deeper aroma, and an abundance that makes it feel almost negligent not to use it generously. I leaned into that abundance and built a menu where basil showed up again and again, but never in quite the same way twice.

This sun-soaked summer menu is built around simple dishes that feel special without asking much of you — a bright lemon pasta, tender spiced fish, and a crisp courgette salad that brings everything together.