Aggeliki Charami: The award-winning chef who would feed Guns N’ Roses tomato broth, koji and vegetable dumplings

In recent years, Aggeliki Charami’s name has maintained a steady presence on the international plant-based scene. She has worked in high-end kitchens and gastronomic projects such as Koukoumi in Mykonos, Greece’s first vegan five-star hotel, which, under her guidance, earned an FNL star. Her journey eventually led her to the top of the Alps. At OMNIA in South Tyrol, Aggeliki achieves something that feels almost paradoxical. In an alpine landscape 2,000 metres above sea level, her cooking remains in constant dialogue with her Greek memories, even when most of the ingredients come from South Tyrol itself.

Her recent international recognition has only confirmed that momentum. In 2025, the respected Schlemmer Atlas ranked her among South Tyrol’s Top 50 Chefs, while OMNIA received an outstanding 17/20 from Gault&Millau. These are distinctions rarely awarded to fully plant-based ventures, and they show that Aggeliki is setting new standards in mountain gastronomy.

Aggeliki understands cooking in terms of musical composition. She thinks about progression, transitions, and the shifts between intensity and silence. In the kitchen, she often listens to techno and rock for the energy they give her, yet when the moment calls for absolute focus and calm, she returns to classical music. “Flower Duet” is her refuge. The sense of lightness the piece carries is exactly what she also seeks on the plate.

If that music had a flavour, it would taste like a translucent white tomato or melon consommé, scented with jasmine or elderflower and touched by a faint marine note from seaweed. She is drawn to salinity that does not weigh you down, but instead transports you somewhere else. That fine balance remains present even in her more intense creations, such as her warm watermelon soup with strawberries, melon cordial and smoked chilli. “I’m interested in the sequence of sensations,” she tells me, “in the way a dish transforms while it lingers on the palate.”

Aggeliki describes her menu as “cinematic”, a word that points to the restraint and the immersive atmosphere one encounters in the compositions of Philip Glass or in Terrence Malick films such as The Tree of Life. Her goal is economy of ingredients and depth of flavour, without unnecessary excess. This is also the approach that brought her onto the Identità Golose 2026 list, establishing her as one of the most influential figures in European plant-based gastronomy.

When I ask her who she would cook for backstage before a concert, her answer is unexpected: Guns N’ Roses. What intrigues her is the coexistence of raw intensity and underlying melancholy in their music. “Before they went on stage, I’d prepare a clear tomato broth with wild herbs, a little koji and a small vegetable dumpling. A simple dish, rooted in care.”

If she had to single out one dish that encapsulates her journey, though, it would be her vegan “calamari”, made from kombucha scoby. When she first presented it, her hesitation had nothing to do with technique, but with the emotional weight it carried. For her, calamari means Sunday memories with her mother in Laconia, an entire era of life condensed into one taste.

The response from diners was deeply affirming. Some were moved by the way they recognised a familiar flavour in an entirely new form, while some vegans found it difficult to try, shocked by the accuracy of that memory. Quite a few kept asking her again and again whether the dish really contained no animal products. For Aggeliki, this was never a simple attempt to recreate a specific taste, but rather a question: “What can we preserve from the past, and how can we redefine it for the future?”

As our conversation draws to a close, it turns to Anthony Bourdain. Tony, who for years had been openly sceptical of ideologically driven vegetarianism, only softened toward the end. Aggeliki sees the risk clearly and agrees with him on one essential point: food should never become a tool for moral display. For her, plant-based cuisine is not a manifesto, but an exciting form of expression. At the end of the day, what matters is flavour.

At OMNIA, through the local herbs of the Dolomites and the fermentation techniques that helped her gain international recognition, Aggeliki Charami continues to compose dishes that search for balance between the intensity of rock music and the complete silence of the mountain landscape.