Ella Mittas uses food as a way into things: family histories, forgotten traditions, the systems and politics of food culture, the oddities of everyday life. She writes, cooks, takes photographs, makes artworks and books, bringing together recipes, stories and the people she meets along the way. It’s an open-ended way of working, fuelled by exchange and curiosity, that lets her move between Australia and Europe, gathering material, sharing ideas and making connections as she goes.
With your two books, you must have travelled a lot between Europe and Australia over the past few years. How does being between the two continents affect you?
I think it’s quite particular for Australians because a lot of us have roots or family in Europe. Mine is in Greece, but I live so far away, geographically and in terms of time zones. When you’re in Europe, you feel a bit divorced from Australia as there are only a couple of hours a day when we can communicate. It sometimes feels a bit like two parallel worlds.
Especially when I was younger, I felt split between the two places because I really dreamt of being in Europe, but the living conditions in Australia are great, and my immediate family is there too. I wanted to live in Greece, yet it wasn’t financially viable for me. In Australia I could make a living and have a much easier time. It has always been a bit of a balancing act, being between these two places.
For the new book, you travelled to several places: Greece, Italy, Georgia and Bulgaria. How did you explore them?
The research for this book took about three or four years, and we spent all the summers in Europe. We were seven weeks in Georgia, where we did a residency and travelled around. The following summer I went to Italy for the wine harvest. The trip to Bulgaria was shorter, just a few weeks, but all the trips were quite extensive and intense.
When I was younger, I would work in kitchens in the places I was researching. I got quite good at cooking, so I don’t do that anymore, but I still like to spend time in a place, especially if I’m going to write about it. I don’t feel I can describe a place unless I’ve spent enough time there. It also takes time to find scenarios that are interesting enough to write about.
The festival we went to in Georgia was a bit of a fluke. We almost didn’t go, but someone invited us, so we went, and it was incredible.
Can you tell me more about that experience?
It was a religious festival for the summer harvest, a kind of pagan tradition in Tusheti, a very remote region of Georgia. Until the 1980s, there were no roads into the region. In winter, you couldn’t get in because the roads were completely covered in snow; you had to walk or fly in by helicopter. Because so few people came in, the region had kept a lot of its traditions.
We saw them slaughtering animals in the name of the sun for example. It was very patriarchal too. They had a supra, a traditional Georgian feast, and the men and women had to be separated. Women weren’t allowed into some of the spaces, including the church, so I only heard about those parts from my partner. Coming from Australia, where there’s such a mix of cultures, going somewhere like that was quite an experience. It felt really old school and hardcore. But it’s their tradition and culture, and it was very interesting to discover.
Your first book is about food and culture in Greece and Turkey, while the new one includes more countries. How did the second book come about?
I did a fellowship at the State Library in Melbourne. I’d applied to write another cookbook, but I didn’t know exactly what it would be about. While researching, I found a lot of archival material about Soviet cookbooks and food, and that caught my attention.
I’d already interviewed people in Bulgaria’s Slow Food Network who were trying to bring back traditional food networks, but I hadn’t understood what food had been like under Soviet rule. I started researching that and thinking about the traditions and food networks that had been lost when food systems were industrialised. That became the starting point for the book: what does it mean to inherit a place, its traditions and its food culture?
The women I interviewed in Bulgaria said that preserving food culture was important for their sense of pride in Bulgaria and in themselves. They were helping farmers and artisan producers keep their crafts and food traditions alive, which is hard work. Coming from Australia, where so many things are taken for granted, it made me think about why we value traditions and what happens to them in the future.
I was also pregnant while writing the book, so I was thinking about what I’ve inherited from my Greek grandparents, who are in their nineties now, and how I’m going to pass that culture on to my son. What will it look like as he grows up?
You said that in Australia, people might take things more for granted culturally, or perhaps not think so much about where things come from. Do you think there’s a difference between Australia and Europe in how people see this?
Australia is so multicultural. I’m Greek Australian, for example. My grandparents came over after the Second World War. My dad’s generation were second-generation Greeks, and they faced some racism. My dad didn’t want to be identified as Greek. He wanted to fit in and become Australian, so he played football and never mentioned his Greek history. Now I feel like my generation is starting to identify more with our mixed heritage and trying to understand it better, but also playing on it. It’s almost become trendy, like an aesthetic.
When I went to Bulgaria, I realised that people from the Slow Food movement were doing this work because they wanted young people to take Bulgarian culture seriously. They wanted young people to stay, feel invested in the country and farm in ways that were good for it. A lot of farming is set up to benefit foreign investors: they grow luxury produce and ship it abroad, while Bulgarian people aren’t paid fairly. They said people don’t have the same sense of pride in Bulgaria when it comes to marketing themselves. Entrepreneurship is still a foreign concept for some, after such a long time under Soviet influence. But if they don’t start doing something, the goods and the money will keep leaving the country.
There was a real urgency that I don’t see in Australia, such a rich country. There isn’t the same necessity to preserve things and look back.
Do those findings inspire you to look more closely at Australian traditions and food culture?
Australia’s history is complicated because it’s built on migration. Apart from Indigenous people, everyone is a migrant; it just depends on when your family arrived. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about being in Australia as a descendant of Greek people, and how that identity changes over generations. I’m third generation, so what does that mean for my sense of what being Greek is?
It’s a strange thing because the Greece my grandparents remember, and the traditions they passed on to us, are from the place they left when they were eighteen. That Greece doesn’t exist anymore. When I go to Athens or their village, it’s very different. The traditions they passed on to me aren’t part of Greece in the same way today.
Has working on these books strengthened your sense of Greek inheritance, or has it done the opposite?
When I was younger, I was working in Greece and trying to live here. My sense of Greek identity was more fractured because I was desperate to stay, but I didn’t speak the language. It was during the financial crisis, so there were no jobs. I have a Greek passport, but I couldn’t get a Greek bank account, so I wasn’t able to work. It was a strange thing, being a citizen but not really being invited to stay. It was a real identity crisis back then, but nowadays I feel a bit more resolved.
When you’re at home in Melbourne, what does your working life look like? Is it mainly food or writing, or how do you divide your time?
It’s seasonal. I have a catering business and do a lot of private cheffing, so that’s my main source of income. The event work is mostly in summer, when everyone has birthday parties, Christmas parties and weddings. In winter, when there aren’t many events, I usually take time off to write. That’s when I get my writing work done.
When I was younger and working for myself, I didn’t charge enough, and the business side wasn’t as solid. Now I get paid well, so it’s not such an issue. I used to be very stressed about getting enough work and took on too much all the time. Now I’m okay with it. It’s very flexible.
It took me a long time to figure that set-up out. To stop feeling stressed and to save money during the rest of the year, but now it works quite well. I’ve been working for myself for about seven years.
What’s it like being self-employed in Australia?
I think it’s pretty well set up. It’s got harder in recent years because the cost of living is quite intense, especially food costs. But I feel I can work in a way that lets me get all my creative work done, which is good.
Making books is also very entrepreneurial. I self-published the first book, then sold it to a publishing house once I’d sold all my copies. I’ve self-published the second one too. I want the print quality to be high. I take the photos on film and make all the artwork, so I prefer to self-publish and pay for more expensive printing. I want the book to look a certain way, and I think that’s what makes it special. Maybe in the future I’ll sell a book to a publishing house again, but I prefer having control over all those components.
It’s a choice to work like this, but it means I get to work with people I really admire, who also have very niche businesses. It’s a lifestyle project for me. I get to travel with my partner, and now with our newborn, and have these experiences that I can write about. My partner loves travelling too and helps me with everything, so this is what we want to spend our time doing.
Your books combine writing and cooking. How do these two practices feed into each other?
I studied creative writing at university before I became a chef. My first book was like an honour’s thesis; the essays in the book were part of that. Since then, I’ve started writing a novel, which is also about Greek Australian identity and the conflicts around that.
Working in the library archives was great. I’d never had access to history like that before, and I’d like to do more of it. But it’s also handy that I’m good at cooking. It’s a useful component of the books: readers get a story, but also something practical for everyday life. If the first book had been only a memoir, I don’t think people would have paid as much attention to it. A cookbook is useful.
This way of working really benefits me because I get to travel, eat, meet people and talk to them, and then communicate all of that. Here in Greece, we’ve just had a meal down the road and it was delicious. I’m already thinking about writing some notes so I can make a recipe out of what we had. It must just be the way my brain works. Documenting everything, making notes and thinking about how it might fit into a story. I’m paying a lot of attention and I like that.
You have an event coming up with Bautier. On 25 October, you’ll be taking over the café for a day and cooking from your recipes. How did you get in touch with Marina in the first place?
Marina stocked my first book, and I’d spoken to her about stocking some of my prints because I make the woodcuts in the book. When I started making the second book, I put a call out for people to help with recipe testing, and she tested one of the recipes too. Then, when we were organising this tour, I reached out and said, ‘Maybe we could do an event together?’ and she said yes.
It’s great because we get to go somewhere we probably wouldn’t have gone otherwise. We get to work in her café, and it’s nice for us to meet all these interesting people.
Bautier also brings together design, food, books and hospitality. Does that feel like a natural fit for you?
It’s funny because when I look at all the cookbooks stocked at Bautier, I know most of the authors. We have a lot in common. I’m really impressed by what Marina does and how she brings together work in these different fields.
And let’s get down to the food. What are you proposing for the menu?
I’ve suggested some dishes from the new book and a couple from the first one. My menus are usually quite similar. I try to keep everything vegetarian, with a few fresh vegetable dishes and something fried. I like having different textures, and for everything to go together.
It’ll be lovely to share these recipes in such a beautiful space and meet all the different people who come through the café during the day.
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Ella Mittas chez Bautier
Sunday October 25, 2026
11am-4pm, walk-in only