Immersed since childhood in eating, cooking and the art of hospitality, Platon Mantheakis claimed homes on three continents before serendipitously settling in Southern Oregon. Influenced by East Africa, Australia and Britain, Mantheakis’ unique Greek style pairs with the region’s wines in ways as adventurous as this globe-trotting chef.

“Surprise the person who is coming to dinner,” says Mantheakis, adding that his unconventional wine picks for food come with the caveat that “snobs” should drop the attitude.

“Tuna with tempranillo,” says Mantheakis of his favorite foil for Oregon’s fresh albacore. The wine’s spiciness is heightened with whole coriander and black sesame seeds crusted onto the fish, lightly seared in olive oil.

Valley View’s varietal is his first choice among “all the big names” with whom Mantheakis has worked. The Jacksonville estate, where he bottled wine, was one of the first to employ him when he arrived in the Rogue Valley in 1985.

“I have seen Oregon grow up.”

Born and raised in Tanzania, Mantheakis has deep roots on the Greek isle of Crete, where his family’s hospitality was renowned.

“In Greek culture, there’s usually one family with the means and generosity to do all the holiday entertaining.” That was his, he adds.

Among childhood homes, he counted his family’s resort in Tanzania, accommodations in Australia and relatives’ residences in Crete. At British boarding school, Mantheakis felt most at home in the kitchen, where he charmed the stout, surly village matrons into letting him lend a hand.

“At first, they wanted to kick me out of the kitchen,” recalls Mantheakis.

He brought Greek herbs and African spices to enliven the bland boarding-school fare. To earn the cooks’ favor, Mantheakis showered them with costume jewelry and more compliments than the women likely had ever been paid on their husbands’ farms in the English countryside, says Mantheakis.

“They gave me the run of that kitchen.”

Similar tactics secured Mantheakis’ position, first at his aunt’s restaurant, Poppi’s Anatolia in Eugene, and later at the Jacksonville Inn. Waiting tables at both establishments, Mantheakis gained a reputation for handling the most difficult customers. The ones who made all the other servers curse and even cry, Mantheakis eagerly took upon himself.

“I managed to turn every one of those people around.”

At the insistence of a Poppi’s customer, who also frequented the Jacksonville Inn, owner Jerry Evans hired Mantheakis to wait tables. Thirty-two years later, Mantheakis manages the Inn on a more favorable schedule than Evans himself, who still works evenings and weekends at the icon he’s owned for 43 years.

“He’s a multi-talented guy,” says Evans, adding that Europeans consider hospitality a noble profession, one that can be their life’s work.

Over the past few years, Mantheakis has spent less time in the Inn’s dining room and more behind the scenes, orchestrating catering obligations and special events. His “artistic” sensibilities, Evans says, are evident in Mantheakis’ catering arrays.

“Other people would take the exact same food, and it looks like a pile of stuff.”

As an advocate for letting food “speak for itself,” Mantheakis says he works “like a surgeon” in the kitchen, particularly when fresh vegetables are the bill of fare. Respect for food is an ethic Mantheakis learned in Africa, where he realized that so many people worldwide go without.

“I don’t believe in beating food up,” he says. “Don’t overprocess it.

“When I cook, it’s almost like a dating game,” he laughs. “You’re going to get them to marry.”

For his son’s summer nuptials, Mantheakis spit-roasted a whole lamb in the Greek style. The two-day celebration epitomized his experience as an events and wedding specialist independent of the Jacksonville Inn. Mantheakis and his wife, Janet, own Kardiamu Kitchen, which specializes in Greek island cooking and product development. Among their frequent venues are Del Rio Vineyards near Gold Hill, RoxyAnn Winery in Medford, Red Lily Vineyards in the Applegate, Jacksonville’s new Rellik Winery and Irvine & Roberts Vineyards near Ashland, where their daughter is assistant winemaker.

 “Right now, the wine industry and the culinary industry are inseparable,” says Mantheakis.

There’s still plenty of room for new trends aimed at new audiences, he says, from wines blended with herbs, botanicals and even cannabis, to sipping half-bottles from straws.

“I’ve seen it all,” says Mantheakis. “I think people are really starting to relax about wine.”

To that end, he works to dispel wine myths among customers. Rosé isn’t low-brow. Sweet wines can be enjoyed throughout a meal, not just with appetizers or dessert. Try chilling an off-dry red wine in the summer and warming one in the winter with cinnamon sticks and peppercorns.

Celebrate the fall bounty, he says, with a simple dish of roasted vegetables, whole garlic cloves, crusty bread and lots of olive oil for dipping. Savor it with Del Rio’s Rose Jolee or Irvine & Roberts pinot noir. A specialty of Greek grandmothers, he says, the meal stands on its own without a morsel of meat in sight.

“Make that your entrée, or my grandmother is going to give you the stick!”

©Southern Oregon Wine Scene – from the Fall Winter 2019 issue