{"id":239644,"date":"2025-06-05T16:31:41","date_gmt":"2025-06-05T13:31:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mancodestyle.com\/?p=239644"},"modified":"2025-06-05T16:33:52","modified_gmt":"2025-06-05T13:33:52","slug":"the-golden-hook","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mancodestyle.com\/en\/the-golden-hook\/","title":{"rendered":"The \u201cGolden Hook\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"<p data-start=\"69\" data-end=\"114\"><em><strong>by Christos Zabounis<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p data-start=\"116\" data-end=\"459\">In 1991, 20-year-old Nikolin deserted his military unit in Gjirokast\u00ebr and, overnight, crossed the border on foot and entered Greece. After spending some time in a detention center in Kastoria, he made his way to Piraeus through a connection. There, he worked various jobs until he ended up as a waiter at the tavern &#8220;O Diasimos&#8221; in Piraiki. &#8220;Everything I learned, I owe to my boss, Ilias Kourouniotis, who recently passed away. He was a teacher, a good man, a second father,&#8221; he confesses in fluent Greek. After 14 years and 8 months, Nikos\u2014as everyone called him\u2014took his wife and two children and returned to Albania. &#8220;It was right after the big boom of the Stock Market. I felt it was time to leave and start my own business.&#8221; In Tirana, where he settled, he knew no one. Having gained some knowledge about seafood, he decided to open a fish tavern. Up until then, his compatriots would go to Durr\u00ebs for fish. &#8220;I was supported by the 7,000 Greeks working in Tirana at the time\u2014and they still support me.&#8221; The night we visited, the restaurant was packed with wealthy compatriots of his, judging by the jewelry and accessories of the patrons. &#8220;There\u2019s been a shift in food culture. Back in the day, people would come, drink five bottles of wine, and eat very little. Now, it\u2019s the opposite. We&#8217;ve blended two cultures\u2014the Greek and the Italian. It\u2019s like a melody.&#8221; With pride, he shows me two large mosaics he commissioned from the renowned artist Saimir Strorti. The first depicts the god Poseidon. The second shows a sexy woman waiting for the fisherman to return, gazing at a boat on the sea. His fish comes from Sarand\u00eb and is incredibly fresh. &#8220;My boss in Greece used to talk to me about the Ionian red mullet (koutsomoura), and I didn\u2019t understand why it was considered second to the barbouni (striped red mullet). Now I know,&#8221; he concludes meaningfully.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"2001\" data-end=\"2063\"><em>\u201cGolden Hook (Grepi i Art\u00eb)\u201d <\/em><em>Rruga Nikolla Jorga, Tirane<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>by Christos Zabounis In 1991, 20-year-old Nikolin deserted his military unit in Gjirokast\u00ebr and, overnight, crossed the border on foot and entered Greece. After spending some time in a detention center in Kastoria, he made his way to Piraeus through a connection. There, he worked various jobs until he ended up as a waiter at [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":239641,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18496],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mancodestyle.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239644"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mancodestyle.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mancodestyle.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mancodestyle.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mancodestyle.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=239644"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.mancodestyle.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239644\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":239646,"href":"https:\/\/www.mancodestyle.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239644\/revisions\/239646"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mancodestyle.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/239641"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mancodestyle.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=239644"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mancodestyle.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=239644"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mancodestyle.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=239644"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}