Aegli Delivers Heart Craft and Modern Greek Energy

Aegli doesn’t box you into a procession. There’s a three- or four-course sharing option if you want the structure, but most tables graze à la carte and build their own itinerary. Prices sit in that comfortable zone where attention to detail still feels accessible, especially once you see how much is made in-house. This is Greek food reimagined with clarity rather than complication. Lighter on the stomach, high on intent.

The tone is set with warm spelt bread that lands with steam lifting from the crust. Spread it with fig and olive tapenade or with Mykonian Kopanisti, a DOP cheese made for centuries. This is where Yiannis lingers tableside, explaining the pedigree and the peppery snap that surprises anyone expecting a basic feta moment. A baked round of anthotyro follows for a compare and contrast. It arrives bronzed at the edges, soft within, and paired with sour cherry and caper relish. The relish sharpens the richness without yelling. It’s the kind of small lesson you only get when the chef is as keen on conversation as he is on mise en place.

Seafood keeps the opening light. Roast scallops rest on potato skordalia with lemon braised peas which come soft, clean and gently garlicked. Loukaniko brings dry aged beef sausage with slow baked lima beans that taste as if they have been coached to absorb flavour. Comfort is treated with discipline. Nothing is muddy. Everything has a job.

Then comes the moment that explains Aegli’s quiet obsession with detail. Yiouvetsi. Crystal Bay prawns glossed in a lemon sauce that hits bright and buttery in the same breath. Underneath sits hand made orzo with a texture that makes you sit up. Only now does Yiannis tell the story. On a trip through Athens he spotted a mysterious eight kilo contraption in a vintage shop. He bought it on instinct, only later learning it was an orzo machine. He brought it to Melbourne long before Aegli had a name. Today that bit of antique pragmatism hums in South Melbourne, turning out kritharaki with proper chew and a silk coat of sauce. You can taste the hunch paying off.

From the grill, a pork ranch steak lands with confident char and a tender centre. Pair it with the roast over coal butternut pumpkin and pear. The fruit and veg pairing reads like a polite handshake and eats like a hug. Sweetness, smoke and just enough acidity to keep things honest. If you want something bolder there is wood fired chicken with burnt carrot purée, lamb that regulars from the chef’s earlier projects will recognise, and a claypot beef that does slow cooking without the heaviness that usually follows.

The wine list straddles Greece and Australia with a steady hand. Our glass of 2024 Papagiannakos Savatiano Old Vines played nicely with the citrus thread that runs through the menu, especially that lemon forward yiouvetsi. Cocktails tip their hat to Hellenic spirits without feeling like homework.

Dessert stays in the comfort lane. Rice pudding arrives with a brûléed top and a seasonal fruit chutney. It is a clean finish that returns you to childhood in two spoonfuls. Traditionalists can chase it with portokalopita or bougatsa, and there is a neat line of digestifs for anyone who enjoys a nightcap that tastes like a Greek holiday.

What stands out is not a trophy ingredient or a stunt. It is the way the room and the food speak the same language. Service is informed without theatre. Cooking is refined without fuss. Yiannis tells stories, but he edits well. You leave Aegli feeling looked after, which is the point of restaurants, and perhaps the bit we talk about least.

For anyone tracking Melbourne’s Greek wave, Aegli plays a different tune. It nods to tradition, trims it for modern appetites, and keeps generosity at the centre. The kind of place you take your parents, your mate from Mykonos and your neighbour who swears they do not like Greek food. By dessert, they will.