For restaurateur and front-of-house dynamo Angie Giannakodakis, the opening of Taverna as a permanent restaurant marks a return to her roots in more ways than one.

The home-style Greek concept she created with Guy Holder in late 2024 as a pop-up is a deeply personal tribute to her parents and her Greek heritage, following the 12-year run of her acclaimed European restaurant Epocha in Carlton, which closed in September.

But going permanent with Taverna, which opens on January 31, also finds her back on familiar ground – in the same Brunswick East site where she helped establish George Calombaris’ original Hellenic Republic many years ago.

“It was quite emotional stepping into that space, I’m pinching myself a little bit every day,” says Giannakodakis.

The corner site on Lygon Street (most recently home to the restaurant off-shoot of barbecue store Que Club) is once again an oasis of crisp whites and Aegean blues, plus stripped-back Baltic pine tables, earthenware pots and rattan light fixtures.

It’s a casual, convivial space to celebrate community, home-style cooking, and the concept of “philoxenia” (literally “friend to a stranger”) that’s synonymous with Greek hospitality, and part of Giannakodakis’ legacy of service.

“It’s more than a restaurant,” she says. “When my mum, the matriarch of our family, entered care after a fall, I realised how much her food represented love and survival. Taverna is … my way of honouring her and my dad.”

Fittingly, you can expect some of her mother’s recipes, like horta (seasonal greens), keftethes (pan-fried meatballs) and “Katina’s moussaka” when eggplant is in season.

Other signatures include arni kleftiko (lamb shoulder wrapped in parchment and slow-cooked over coals) and pastitsada, a dish of beef ragu tangled with macaronia pasta, which hails from the island of Kerkyra (Corfu). Vegetarian plates include revithokeftethes (crunchy chickpea fritters) and super silky fava (yellow split pea dip) with a well of Cretan olive oil, capers and shallots.

Taverna arrives amid a Greek dining renaissance in Melbourne, following the openings of Tzaki, Kafeneion and more. But Giannakodakis – who established her name at The Press Club, and later opened Camberwell’s Elyros with Holder – was at the vanguard of the city’s earlier Hellenic wave.

“I don’t think there’s ever going to be enough Greek restaurants to counteract the movement that happened with Italian and Chinese and even French restaurants,” she says.

“You put 10 good Greek restaurants in Melbourne, I don’t think that’s enough any way.

“But I do believe the simplicity and loveliness of our cuisine is what’s necessary in this time … people are seeking things that taste good, are nutritious and fill you in a way others can’t.

“What’s happening now in the scene – the work that’s being done is a small portion of what’s to come.”

Dessert might be as simple as freshly cut watermelon, or as playful as a sundae of seasonal sorbet, kataifi pastry and ice-cream made from mastic, the pine-flavoured gum that comes from the mastic tree.

You’ll have to wait to pair these dishes with some raki or Giannakodakis’ blue-tinged Aegean Negroni – the liquor licence isn’t approved yet.

Lunch Saturday to Sunday, dinner daily, from January 31.

434 Lygon Street, Brunswick East, ourtaverna.com