MERAKI
Travel Experiences
The Chef’s Palate: Greece with Chef Evan Mallett
& Forager Rachel Alexandrou
An Eco-Culinary Retreat in Greece
October 2 to 9, 2026
The morning air in the Laconian hills carries wild thyme and the faint sweetness of ripening figs. Below, the medieval towers of Monemvasia rise from the sea like something dreamed rather than built. You have spent the morning at the edge of an olive grove with a fourth-generation family who has worked this land since before your grandparents were born, pressing oil the same way, answering the same questions from the same trees. This afternoon, Rachel Alexandrou will lead you into the hillside and name what is edible and what is not, and why a cook would care about the difference. Tonight, the group will plan a meal together from everything you have touched this week. Chef Evan Mallett has been asking these questions for thirty years. In Greece's southern Peloponnese, for eight days, so will you.
What ends up on the plate begins somewhere in the land and sea. This program finds that somewhere.
The Chef's Palate is a program for people who want to understand where food actually comes from and what a chef does with that knowledge. Over eight days, a small group works and learns alongside Chef Evan Mallett as he moves through markets, farms, and open landscapes, asking the questions he has always asked: who grew this, what did it take, and what does it want to become? In the field, the group is joined by forager and wild foods educator Rachel Alexandrou, who leads the foraging work. The program ends with a meal the group plans and prepares together.
Eight days. Up to Twelve participants.
Registration Closes July 31, 2026
Who This Is For
This program is for people who have always wanted to understand how a chef thinks. Not the technique, exactly, but the thinking that happens before anyone touches a knife: why this ingredient, from this place, at this moment in the season. Over seven days you will follow that thinking from market to grove to hillside to table, and you will leave with something you can use, a way of seeing food that goes home with you and shows up in your own kitchen.
It is also, frankly, for anyone who wants to experience Greece the way most visitors never do. The Greeks have a word for what you will encounter at every turn: philoxenia. Literally, friend to the stranger. It is not a hospitality industry term. It is a cultural reflex, thousands of years old, that means you will be fed before you are hungry, welcomed before you ask, and sent home with more than you arrived with.
Athens: Where It Begins
The program opens in Athens at Ergon House, a hotel built around a working food market that has spent nearly two decades traveling across Greece, mountains, islands, valleys, to find the small independent producers most people never hear about and bring their work to the public. It is doing the same thing Evan has spent his career doing in New England. A reasonable place to land.
The first morning is Varvakios, the central meat and fish market on Athinas Street. When Evan arrives in a city, he finds the market. This is that. One of the great markets in the Mediterranean, where professional buyers arrive before dawn and the stalls run loud and unhurried by visitors. He will move through it the way he moves through any market, asking what is worth cooking, who caught it, what the season is telling him. You will be alongside him while he does.
That evening the group eats in Psiri, the neighborhood just west of the market, at the kind of taverna that has no interest in being discovered. The food is honest, and the room is full of locals. A good first night before the week properly begins.
The Peloponnese: Where the Work Happens
From Athens the group travels south into Laconia, one of the least-visited and most food-serious regions in Greece. The olive harvest is underway in October, and the Laconian landscape in autumn is exactly what this program is built around: family groves, small producers, ingredients that have been grown and pressed and fermented the same way for generations.
The group will spend the next four mornings in the field. Wineries, because wine is inseparable from this landscape and Evan wants to understand what the soil is doing. An apiary, because a beekeeper can tell you more about a region's plant life than almost anyone. Truffle hunting, because in southern Greece in October it is simply what is happening. And the olive harvest: watching oil get pressed from fruit that has been growing on these trees longer than anyone can remember and tasting it before it has traveled anywhere.
Rachel leads the foraging work, reading the hillsides around Monemvasia for what is edible, what is medicinal, what a cook would carry back to the kitchen and why. Evan is alongside her, asking the same questions he asks anywhere: what does this want to become?
Afternoons are yours. Optional add-ons include a guided historical tour of Monemvasia's medieval kastro, one of the best-preserved fortified towns in the Mediterranean, and a boat excursion along the coast to see the area from the sea and swim in October water that is still warm. Evenings are unhurried: authentic local restaurants, a home-cooked dinner, and on the last night, a meal the group prepares together at a private villa.
The Culminating Meal
On the last evening, the group gathers at a private villa to cook together. The menu comes from everything encountered during the week: what was foraged, what was pressed, what came from the winery and the grove and the sea. Evan and Rachel lead the kitchen. Everyone participates.
Reasons to Travel with Evan Mallett
He Came Up Through Curiosity, Not Credentials
Before he had a restaurant, Evan was a food writer. No culinary school. No formal training. What he has instead is three decades of asking the questions most chefs skip: who grew this, under what conditions, and why does it matter.
His Cooking Begins Before the Kitchen
At Black Trumpet, local sourcing was not a marketing decision. Evan was doing it before the term farm-to-table existed, because it made no sense to him that an ingredient should travel across the world before it reached a plate. In Laconia, that same instinct meets a landscape where sourcing locally was never a philosophy. It was just how things worked. The olive grove families, the winemakers, the wild foods Rachel pulls from the hillsides, these are the conversations Evan has been having his whole career. Now you will be in the room.
He Wants It to Be Contagious
Evan once said of Black Trumpet: "I love food so much that I want my experience and education in food to be contagious." The first critic to review the restaurant wrote that she didn't understand most of what was on the menu, and that everything she had was fantastic.
About Chef Evan Mallett
Evan Mallett is the owner and executive chef of Black Trumpet in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, a six-time James Beard Award nominee, and the author of Black Trumpet: A Chef's Journey Through Eight New England Seasons, published by Chelsea Green. He co-founded Cultivate New Hampshire, an umbrella nonprofit for local food and culture, and launched the culinary arts program at Great Bay Community College in 2024. What drives all of it is what he once described as a "super geeky anthropological curiosity" about food: where it comes from, who grew it, what it took, and what it wants to become. That curiosity built Black Trumpet's sourcing relationships over twenty years. In Greece, it is what he will bring to the market, the grove, and the table.
About Rachel Alexandrou
Rachel Alexandrou grew up on the coast of Maine, where she found foraging as a teenager on long walks along the banks of the Sheepscot River, learning the landscape season by season. She has been reading landscapes ever since and has spent her career teaching others to do the same. A trained horticulturist and scientific illustrator, she works under the name Giantdaughter, leading plant identification walks, hosting foraged feasts, and publishing work that sits at the intersection of food, ecology, and art.
She is also Greek American, and has made multiple foraging trips to Greece, including the Laconian region where this program is based. She knows what grows on these hillsides in October and what a cook would do with it. In the field alongside Evan, she brings a completely different set of questions to the same landscape.
Where We Stay
Athens: Ergon House
A hotel built above a working food market in the center of Athens. Ergon has spent nearly two decades traveling across Greece to find the small independent producers most people never hear about and bring their work to the public. On the shelves around you: olive oils, honeys, wines, cheeses, and grains sourced directly from the farms and groves that made them. The philosophy is the same one Evan has practiced at Black Trumpet for twenty years.
Monemvasia: Kinsterna Hotel
Kinsterna is a restored Byzantine mansion whose estate includes working vineyards growing rare local varieties including the nearly lost Monemvasia grape, olive groves of the indigenous Athinolia variety whose oil is among the highest in polyphenol content in Greece, and productive gardens and orchards whose seasonal harvest feeds the kitchen directly. The property's entire culinary philosophy is built around what grows on the land, what the local farmers and fishermen bring in, and what the season is doing. It is doing exactly what Evan has spent thirty years doing in Portsmouth.
Built around a large Byzantine cistern that gives the property its name, the estate passed through Greek, Latin, Ottoman, and Venetian hands before coming into Greek ownership after the revolution of 1821. Its last private inhabitant, Lina Kapitsini, lived in part of the complex until the 1970s. After years of abandonment, it was restored in 2010 by local craftsmen using traditional methods: handmade tiles, old marble, iron doors forged in the kiln. An old oil mill is still visible on the grounds. Storage spaces from earlier centuries are beneath the floors of the suites.
Join Us in Greece — October 2 to 9, 2026
Standard Rate: $6,800 per person
This Retreat Includes:
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8 days and 7 nights of immersive culinary and foraging experiences with Chef Evan Mallett and forager Rachel Alexandrou
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Intimate group of up to 12 participants
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Market walk at Varvakios in Athens with Evan
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Foraging sessions with Rachel Alexandrou in the Laconian hills
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Visits to family-owned olive groves, wineries, and an apiary
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Truffle hunting and participation in the olive harvest and pressing
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Time with local fishermen and the food producers behind the ingredients
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A culminating group dinner at a private villa, planned and cooked together
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Boutique accommodations at Ergon House in Athens and Kinsterna Hotel in Monemvasia
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All breakfasts and select lunches and dinners featuring regional Greek cuisine
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All ground transportation during the retreat
Not Included:
International flights, travel insurance (required), select meals, alcoholic beverages except pre-selected dinner wines and spirits, optional add-on excursions, and personal purchases.
Optional Add-Ons:
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Guided historical tour of Monemvasia's medieval kastro and surrounding sites
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Boat excursion along the Laconian coast for swimming and exploring the area from the sea
Securing Your Spot:
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A $2,000 deposit reserves your place
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Remaining balance and registration deadline: July 31, 2026
Frequently Asked Questions
Where does the trip start and end?
The program begins in Athens on October 2nd and ends in Athens on October 9th. Participants arrange their own international flights. Detailed arrival and departure guidance is provided to all registered guests.
Is travel insurance required?
Yes. Travel insurance is required for all participants. We recommend purchasing a policy that covers trip cancellation, interruption, and emergency medical within two weeks of your deposit to ensure the broadest coverage.
What is the physical level required?
The program involves walking on uneven terrain, hillsides, and cobblestone streets, particularly in Monemvasia. Participants should be comfortable with moderate walking on hills and some distance. This is not a strenuous program, but it is an active one.
How much free time is there?
Mornings are generally structured around field visits and foraging. Afternoons are largely free, with optional add-on excursions available. Evenings involve group dinners. There is time built in to rest and explore on your own.
What if I have dietary restrictions?
Please note any dietary restrictions at registration. We will do our best to accommodate within the context of a program built around what is seasonal and local in southern Greece in October.
Can I extend my trip before or after the retreat?
Absolutely. Greece rewards more time. Meraki Travel Experiences can build a custom itinerary around your interests, whether that means more time in Athens, island hopping, or exploring other parts of the Peloponnese. Reach out to us at info@merakiexperiences.com to start planning.