Mark your calendars now for an evening of fabulous food and wine as Chicagoland’s top chefs and special guests offer their twist on classic Mediterranean cuisine for the National Hellenic Museum’s annual Kouzina food and wine event on Thursday, Nov. 5 from 6:30 p.m. to 10 p.m.
While honoring the traditions of Greek cuisine, the chefs will surprise you with their interpretations of classic dishes. The line-up of chefs includes Jimmy Bannos Sr. of Heaven on Seven, Devon Quinn of Paramount Events, John Gatsos of Tavern on Rush, George Engel of City Gate Grille, Louie Alexakis of Avli Estiatoro, and Dimitrios Kallianis of The Shanty and Lonely Tree Olive Oil. More names will be announced in coming days.
This year the museum is adding a dessert lounge, featuring delicious offerings from Stan’s Donuts and Athena Manolakos of PanHellenic Pastry Shop. This is one of most anticipated social events on the National Hellenic Museum’s calendar each year, according to Elizabeth Martin, Executive Director of the Museum. She notes that Kouzina draws people from all over the Chicago area – married couples, young singles and foodies who don’t want to miss out on a chance to eat, drink and mingle with some of Chicago’s top chefs.
This highly anticipated event is an important fundraiser for the National Hellenic Museum, with proceeds going to support the museum’s educational and cultural programs. Proceeds support our mission to connect generations through Hellenic history, culture and the arts, and the Greek story in America, said Marianne Vallas Kountoures, the Museum’s Director of Development. Tickets to this event start at $100 per person.
The National Hellenic Museum is located at 333 South Halsted Street in Chicago’s Greektown at the corner of Halsted and Van Buren. The Museum was founded as the Hellenic Museum and Cultural Center in 1983. Nine years later, the HMCC opened its first facility on Michigan Avenue in downtown Chicago. Then, in July 2004, the Museum moved to a new location at 801 South Adams Street in Chicago’s Greektown. In 2009, the Museum re-branded itself the National Hellenic Museum with a new logo incorporating the Greek key design and a new mission statement: “Connecting generations through Greek history, culture, and art.”
The Museum opened in its current location on Halsted Street on December 10, 2011. It is a four-story, 40,000-square-foot LEED-certification-pending building that is home to extensive collections and archives of more than 17,000 artifacts spanning thousands of years.
At the National Hellenic Museum, you can explore Greek heritage and ideals represented within our exhibits, programs, and collections. The word “Hellenism” is derived from the Greek word “Ellinismos” (ελληνισμός). In Greek, Ellinismos is used to describe the people of Greek lineage and also to describe a set of values for living that was invented by the ancient Greeks. These values became the basis of Western civilization, as we know it today. First appearing in English as Hellenism in 1609, the word came to represent all things related to Greece, including a body of humanistic and classical ideals associated with ancient Greece that includes reason, the pursuit of knowledge and the arts, moderation, and civic responsibility.
