From Oran to Ladadika: the chef teaching Thessaloniki to love rechta
In a twelve-table restaurant near the port, an Algerian cook is quietly building one of the city’s most talked-about menus.
The first thing you notice is the smell of cinnamon and slow-cooked chickpeas drifting into the narrow street. The second is the queue — a mix of students, port workers and Thessalonians who have heard about the hand-cut noodles from a friend.
The chef, who grew up in Oran and trained in hotel kitchens before moving to Greece, says Greeks recognise something familiar in Algerian food: the olive oil, the slow braises, the generosity of the table.
“Greeks and Algerians both believe food is how you say you love someone. That is the whole menu.”
A menu that changes with the seasons
Alongside rechta, the menu rotates between chorba frik in winter, stuffed peppers in summer and makroud with coffee all year round. Ingredients are mostly bought at the Kapani market, with spices brought back from family visits.
For the diaspora in Northern Greece, the restaurant has also become something else: a place to gather on Friday evenings, to hear Darija spoken, and to bring Greek friends to taste home.
