The dining room of the residence of the Gennadius Library, at the foot of Lycabettus, is set, and the first course has already been served: velouté soup with barley and “threads” of Cheshire (British cheese). With the first spoonful, I admire the chef’s ingenuity in using barley instead of pasta—an indication that he follows contemporary gastronomic trends by incorporating “humble” ingredients into high-level dishes.
“Our meal today is the same as the one served 100 years ago at the official inauguration of the library,” director Maria Georgopoulou informs us. I look in surprise at the day’s menu placed beside my plate, inside a folder along with others, written in French and designed with elaborate graphics. I examine them one by one. The first describes a six-course meal at the Lancaster Gate Hotel. The second took place on March 8, 1893, at Marlborough House—now home to the secretariat and foundation of the Commonwealth—and included lamb sweetbreads and foie gras cutlets with truffle. The third comes from an outing to the restaurant of Spiers and Pond in April 1896.
These are three samples from the more than 70 menus that Joannes Gennadios (1844–1932) preserved in his personal albums. His book collection, donated to the American School of Classical Studies, formed the foundation for the establishment of the Gennadius Library. Marked “Family” or “Personal Life,” these albums contain small tokens of his everyday existence: newspaper clippings, theatre programs, cards, notes, travel tickets—even an X-ray of his hand from the early years of the medical use of X-rays. Alongside them are these menus, small traces of a cosmopolitan life in London during the final decades of the 19th century and the early 20th.
The Digital Legacy
In addition to Ms. Georgopoulou, the material’s guardian is Eirini Solomonidi, head librarian of the Gennadius, who undertook its collection and cataloguing. “In these albums we observe the man’s multifaceted personality. The fact that he lived a cosmopolitan life is connected to his collecting very expensive and rare books,” Ms. Solomonidi tells us. “As for the menus themselves, having lived in Paris, I realized that I could easily see similar ones in a contemporary restaurant.”
Their labor-intensive effort, as Ms. Georgopoulou explains, was supported by two major digitization programs: the “Information Society” initiative in 2007 and the NSRF program completed in 2025. As a result, a significant portion of Gennadios’s albums is now accessible through the foundation’s website. At the same time, historians studied the objects and placed them within their historical context.
One example is the menu of the luncheon hosted by Gennadios on April 23, 1876, at the Royal Greek Embassy in London, which lists dishes such as Jerusalem artichoke velouté soup, croquettes stuffed with marrow, and wine jelly with fruit.
Even more impressive is the dinner card for the banquet held in honor of King George I of Greece at Guildhall in London on June 16, 1880. The lavish meal—featuring turtle soup, “Princess” trout, lobster salad, guinea fowl, and Parisian meringues—was accompanied by the overture from the opera Oberon by Carl Maria von Weber, excerpts from La Traviata by Giuseppe Verdi, and Franz Schubert’s “Military March,” among other pieces.
Equally noteworthy is the bill of fare from the celebration of the 25th anniversary of the British School of Archaeology at Athens, particularly because it took place on Greek soil. The menu even records the names of the diners.
The Greek dimension of the archive becomes even more pronounced in the materials relating to the centenary of the Battle of Navarino. At a luxurious event held at the Hotel Claridge, the Greek community of Paris honored the “friends of Greece.” The cover, decorated with a gold medal, bore the names of the three admirals—Codrington, De Rigny, and Heyden.
The Glittering Inauguration of the Gennadius
From these menus, we understand that European high society—at least at its official banquets—had embraced French cuisine. Refined sauces, distinctive and expensive meats, complex techniques, and elaborate combinations dominated the table. It is also striking that, although chocolate had reached Europe as early as the 16th century, desserts relied mainly on fruit and white creams.
At roughly the same time, an urban cuisine aligned with international standards was gradually taking shape in Greece. A key figure was Nikolaos Tselementes, who in 1926 published the Guide to Cooking and Pastry. His recipes brought French culinary elements—béchamel, hollandaise, bouillabaisse—into Greek households.
The official dinner marking the inauguration of the Gennadius Library, on April 24, 1926, epitomized this new urban gastronomic identity. Held at the hotel Le Petit Palais, in the mansion that today houses the Italian embassy, Gennadios hosted a meal for 38 official guests—mainly university professors who traveled from the United States specifically for the occasion—as well as members of the Greek political leadership, headed by the dictator Theodoros Pangalos, then President of the Republic. The sum spent—16,159 drachmas—was astronomical for the time.
The menu featured lobster; the main course was roast chicken with asparagus and hollandaise sauce; and for dessert, “bombe plombières” ice cream was served—a type of parfait with candied fruit in cherry liqueur. Luxury was evident in every detail, from the flowers that cost 1,000 drachmas to the imported Evian water and the fine cigars offered at the end, sealing in cosmopolitan fashion the fulfillment of the great collector’s lifelong dream.
