Ella Mittas cooks as a way of connecting – to the people she shares her delicious food with, and to her own cultural heritage. Growing up Greek-Australian gave her a deep-rooted sense of community, which she continues to return to and discover anew through her cooking, travelling and writing.
Ella’s career in food has seen her working in kitchens, writing essays, developing recipes, and taking part in countless creative collaborations. She first developed her skills while training under industry greats like Brigitte Hafner, Annie Smithers and Ismail Tosun, alongside a stint at Yotam Ottolenghi’s NOPI in London.
She has spent years travelling and working overseas, exploring her roots and immersing herself in different food cultures and ways of life. From these experiences, she wrote her first book, Ela! Ela! To Turkey and Greece, Then Home, which interweaves simple recipes and personal essays tracing the intersections of place, memory and culinary tradition. “Ela” is a play on Ella’s own name, and also means “come” or “come on” in Greek – as in, “Come on, come inside, come to the table.” This sense of a warm, shared homecoming is woven throughout her work.
Ella is a friend and a special part of our community at Market Lane. We love how she cooks, thinks, and writes about food. It’s always a joy when she drops by the roastery for a coffee and a chat – usually sitting outside in the morning sun before the day gets busy. She has a way of talking thoughtfully about almost anything, from photography to food (and sometimes we get a cuddle with her baby, Kos, too). Ella’s cookbook is one of the hardest-working books in our kitchens, so we were absolutely thrilled when she agreed to cook for our team’s holiday party last year – and people are still talking about how good the food was!
Ella has just released her much-anticipated second book, Ela! Ela! To Italy, Georgia, Bulgaria and Home. We visited her in her light-filled home and chatted over coffee and cake about the role of food in her upbringing, the benefits of having multiple creative practices, and some recent meals she’s still thinking about.
