Kuzina is one of those places in Valencia where a restaurant stops feeling like just a restaurant and starts feeling like a story you’ve accidentally walked into. This year, it celebrates 10 years in a way that fits that idea perfectly. Not with a typical “anniversary campaign”, but with a documentary-style album that pulls back the curtain on the people behind it, Lydia and Alkis Strimenos, and the life they’ve built around Greek food, family memory, and a lot of late-night kitchen energy.

The story behind Kuzina already feels like something you’d hear in a film. Lydia arrived in Valencia from England on an Erasmus year. Alkis came from Kiato, a small town in Greece, on a European internship. Neither of them came planning to stay. Neither of them came planning to open a restaurant. And yet here we are, a decade later…

What makes Kuzina stand out isn’t just that it serves Greek food, but how it serves it. This isn’t a “modern fusion interpretation” version of Greece. It is closer to something personal and inherited. Recipes feel like they have been passed down from hand to hand rather than taken from books. Plates like moussaka, spanakopita, and Santorini-style fava are not presented as trend pieces, but as everyday food from somewhere real. That sense of authenticity is part of why the place has built such a loyal following.

The 10-year anniversary album is where things get especially interesting. It is not a glossy brand history or a neat, curated recap. It is a living archive of ten years of life inside and around the restaurant, where memory is captured as it naturally happened. Inside are family photos that feel unposed and real, early snapshots from the restaurant’s first days, handwritten notes, messages, and small fragments of everyday life that were never intended as “archive material”. It moves between the restaurant’s beginnings on Calle Salvador, personal moments at home, and the in-between reality of building something while also trying to live a normal life.

Alongside it is the documentary video, which adds another dimension to the story as it follows Lydia and Alkis while they talk through the album and react to the memories as they appear. It is rooted in something very personal, as the project itself was initiated by Lydia as a surprise for Alkis, reflecting the deeply intertwined nature of their relationship behind the restaurant. Rather than functioning as a traditional documentary that simply looks back, it feels like being guided through the past by the people who lived it, with their voices shaping the meaning of each moment as it unfolds. That same authenticity carries through the tone of the video. Business and life are not separated but shown as constantly overlapping. There are early mornings preparing food at home, the first days on Calle Salvador, quiet escapes to Dénia, family milestones, and the unpredictable reality of building something while also building a family. The result is less a “restaurant history” and more a lived portrait of what it actually takes to keep something like this going for 10 years.

Part of what makes Kuzina worth visiting is exactly that energy. It feels alive in a way many restaurants do not. You are not just eating at a table, you are stepping into a space shaped by real relationships between the owners, their family, their team, and the customers who have been coming back for years. Even something as simple as handwritten notes, stories, and references to family recipes, including those from “yiayia Eva”, adds to that sense that the food has a lineage behind it.

And then there is Valencia itself in the background, a city that has changed dramatically over the last decade, especially in its food scene, which has become more international and experimental. Kuzina arrived at a time when Greek cuisine was still barely visible in that landscape. It did not try to reinvent the cuisine to fit a new place; instead, it simply introduced it faithfully and consistently, staying close to its roots. Over time, that quiet approach helped it become more than just a restaurant, positioning Kuzina as a steady reference point for Greek food in Valencia and a place where local diners can experience it in a more authentic, direct way.

At its core, Kuzina is still what it started as, a place built by two people who did not originally plan to build it at all. But that is exactly why it works. It does not feel engineered. It feels lived in, and that is the difference you notice when you walk in. You come for Greek food, but you leave with the sense that you have been inside a much larger story about migration, family, persistence, and the strange way cities become home when you are not looking for them to.

Report by Lilly Salvador

Article copyright ‘24/7 Valencia’

KUZINA

C/ del Comte d’Almodóvar, 4, Ciutat Vella, 46003 València

Website: https://www.kuzinavlc.com/

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