Recently I caught up with Zoi Antonitsas, who had planned to have a quiet December, and instead finds herself settling in to her new role at Omega Ouzeri on Capitol Hill. 

Her departure from Westward, she says, was a hard choice, and bittersweet. Her two years at the restaurant were filled with professional acclaim, including a Food and Wine Best New Chef nod and a berth on Bon Appetit's lis of best new restaurants. She chose to leave not knowing what she would do next. But the timing felt right. "As everyone knows, Josh and Huxley Wallace are expanding very quickly," she says of former boss Josh Henderson. "I am more of a solitary restaurant type of gal.

It's an easy assumption (one I surely made) that mutual Greek heritage propelled her toward Omega owner Thomas Soukakos. Antonitsas says the timing simply lined up. She was leaving Westward; he was looking for a chef who could also be an anchor at the restaurant so he could spend a little more time with his family (and his Vios locations). Someone who could shape the culture and the energy in both kitchen and dining room.

"It made sense for a multitude of reasons, the Greek part obviously being one of them," says Antonitsas. This culinary/cultural arrangement sounds not unlike the one Jason Stratton has at Mamnoon.

The chef has known Soukakos for years, through a ton of mutual industry acquaintances (her Madison Park Conservatory cohort Cormac Mahoney even worked for him back in the day). "Everyone says everyone in Seattle has worked for Tom Douglas, but Thomas is the underground Tom Douglas." 

Thus far Antonitsas has made a few small changes on the menu—making some dishes more seasonal, putting her own spin on others—and is getting used to cooking food and running a wine list that's 1oo percent Greek. "Omega is this great restaurant with a wonderful foundation," she says. "I’m there to grow this foundation that they’ve built."