When you make a trip to the same place, with the same people, at the same time, every year, you can quickly fall into the trap of establishing a routine. Like me, you might find yourself eating at the same restaurants every visit, convenience overriding your curiosity to try something new. You might even start to fancy yourself as somewhat of a local expert, and aver with your dubious authority that there is nowhere better than your spot—no evidence is needed for this assertion, just your staunch conviction.

Of course, traditions aren’t all bad. My dad and I have plenty of them for our annual trip to Thessaloniki: we hike to the ancient castle at the summit of the city, we tour the public university so my dad can make up stories about his wild college days and we take a selfie with the 20-foot-tall statue of Alexander the Great (or, more specifically, with the five-foot-long balls of Alexander the Great’s horse). These rituals are intimate, letting me learn of my father’s former life in Thessaloniki while I forge my own history in the city. Losing them would mean losing a deep connection with my family and heritage. 

But there’s also danger in a regimented itinerary. It may sound trite, but if you don’t explore, you don’t discover. This maxim is especially true in the world of gastronomy, where there’s only one way to find new foods: eating them. Once you find an amazing meal, it’s tempting to return to it again and again, worried that anything else will pale in comparison.

I’ve certainly become set in my ways in Thessaloniki, to the point where I outline a list of restaurants I want to revisit. Funnily enough, most of the places are favorites I’ve inherited from my father and grandfather; I took them for their word that those spots were simply and objectively the best, and nowhere else was worth trying.

So when my grandfather, joints creaking and back cracking with old age, complained that he didn’t want to trek down to the famous soutzoukakia restaurant on the city’s waterfront (the one I had wanted to go back to in order to celebrate our last day in Thessaloniki) I was, needless to say, not pleased. And when he suggested a small homestyle restaurant, not even a proper ταβέρνα, located down the block from the apartment, I was ready to dismiss it out of hand. After all, if it was so close and we had never been before, then it couldn’t be anything special. So I thought, in my hubris.

But I wasn’t about to argue with an octogenarian, so I kept my complaining to a minimum as we walked no more than two minutes to a small storefront with a washed-out pink paint job and wooden sign with the words “MITATO: παραδοσιακό μεζεδοπωλείο.” Even though it was nearly 2 p.m., the beginning of the lunch rush in Greece, I could see through the hand-decorated windows that the restaurant was empty. Nevertheless, the air that day was bitterly cold with biting winds, and I was to cross the threshold into the cozy indoor dining room, kept warm by the heat of the kitchen’s ovens that could be spotted behind the service counter.

Unlike most establishments, Mitato specializes in μαγειρευτά, an umbrella term for oven-cooked dishes that are usually made at home. While there are some local delis that offer these simple comfort dishes to-go, I had never before seen them served in a sit-down restaurant. I started to get excited as I looked through the menu, recognizing the names of dishes I had eaten every day during childhood summers spent in Greece, but hadn’t tasted in many years. 

To explain, my giagia, like many Greek grandmothers, was the head of the kitchen in my dad’s family. And for good reason—she was a phenomenal cook. As a child I would stand with her in the kitchen, not paying any particular attention to the process but just watching her chop vegetables and mix ingredients, mesmerized by her movements and the promise of a heavenly meal.

My giagia passed away a few years ago, and since her death, I’ve missed nothing more than her cooking. And though I’ve tried to recreate her dishes from a few handwritten notes I found, nothing I’ve made comes close to her caliber of cooking. Before Mitato, I had just about given up on having a proper home-cooked Greek meal ever again. 

But as the server brought out steaming platters of giouvetsi, kokkinisto and kleftiko, I felt hope rise in my chest. Though far from the perfectly plated masterpieces I had seen in Thessaloniki’s fine dining restaurants, the colors seemed more vibrant to me. From the crimson red of the plum wine sauce to the buttery yellow of the roasted potatoes, every dish had a halo of home-cooked goodness that I could sense before I even took a bite. And when I finally raised the first forkful of lemon rice to my mouth and swallowed, it was like my senses were overloaded with heat, flavor and memory.

Every dish was warm in the way that works its way to your very bone, filling your body with not just nutrients but nourishment, and making your heart feel like it’s about to burst with carbs and fats and utter bliss. There were no more than three components per dish—a grain, a protein and a sauce—yet the flavors brought back memories down to the most minor detail: slurping down warm stew on the balcony of our Chalikidi beachhouse, sitting with my brother late at night after returning home from the makeshift movie theater on the beach, where I watched my first Marvel movie (“Spider-Man: Far From Home”) entirely in Greek with English captions. I’m sure we had eaten plenty at the movie theater, as we always begged our grandfather to buy us popcorn, hot dogs and ice cream, but my grandmother could never pass up the chance to provide us with more food. No matter how late we returned, we knew there would be dinner waitingif we managed to stay awake long enough to eat it.

Back in the present, it was all I could do to choke down my emotions with each bite of piping hot, soul-soothing food. My nose, already red and runny from the cold outside, was absolutely streaming snot at this point, drawing odd looks from my brother. I couldn’t care less: I was in heaven, and I’d be damned if some snot was going to stop me from enjoying the best meal I’d eaten in ages. 

I’m in shock that Mitato was in my reach all this time. I gave up on a lot of dishes after my grandmother passed, preferring to stick to foods I couldn’t compare to her cooking. Frankly, I was scared by the thought I would never have her homemade meals again. And I won’t, unfortunately. I’m sure I’m biased because she’s my giagia, but I believe that even Mitato can’t surpass her skill in the kitchen, and of course, it could never replace her role in my home and heart. 

Yet I now know that just because I think I’ve had the best doesn’t mean I can stop searching for, if not something better, something unique and memorable. This column is a collection of love letters to all my favorite foods, bakeries and restaurants of Thessaloniki. As you can see from my articles, I have an intense attachment to all of them and will visit them every time I’m in the city. However, I’m starting to feel an urge to explore beyond my boundaries, switch things up and break out of my routine. I’m not tired of my old haunts, nor am I necessarily expecting to find better places to replace them. I’m just ready to move on from repeating the past.

I loved the Thessaloniki of my childhood, I love the Thessaloniki I know now and I’m certain I’ll continue loving Thessaloniki for as long as I live. The city is alive, growing and changing with me and the hundreds of thousands of people who move through it every day, week, year: time doesn’t matter. I’m tied to Thessaloniki through family and food, but every time I return, I give it a little more of myself and take a little more back home. The city doesn’t belong to me any more than it belongs to anyone else, but I belong to Thessaloniki. I always have, and I always will.