Elias Theodorou
Chef & Founder
Grew up in his grandmother's kitchen on Crete. Cooks like he has something to prove — because he does.
Since 2016
The short version: fire, market, table.
One kitchen, one wood oven, one neighbourhood. Here's the long version — where it started, who runs it, and why the menu refuses to stand still.
The beginning
Twenty-four seats and a wood oven.
In 2016 Elias Theodorou left a fine-dining kitchen in New York, loaded a small oven into a borrowed van, and drove west. Six months later, Olea opened on Valencia Street with twenty-four seats, a chalkboard menu, and a rule borrowed from his yiayia: cook what the market gives you, and never apologize for it.
The first year was chaos — Elias cooked, his partner ran the floor, and the octopus dish nearly started a neighbourhood feud over who got the last one. Nine years on, the rule still holds. The kitchen is bigger, the farm is ours to visit, and the menu still changes with the season.
What hasn't changed: the pasta is still rolled by hand, the bread still proofed overnight, and nobody is ever hurried out of a chair.
See what's cooking now02 — Principles
Four rules, learned the hard way.
01
Seasonal & local
The menu follows the farmers market, not the food magazine. When the peaches go, the peaches go.
02
Nothing from a box
Pasta rolled in-house, bread proofed daily, stock simmered from bones. No shortcuts, no exceptions.
03
The room matters
Good light, real candles, a kitchen that shouts across the pass. Hospitality is the point.
04
Wine with the food
Sixteen wines by the glass, chosen to make the dish better — not more impressive.
03 — The timeline
Nine years, one table at a time.
2016
The doors open
Twenty-four seats, a wood oven, and a chalkboard menu that changed nightly.
2018
The wine list grows
Sixteen wines by the glass, most of them low-intervention. The sommelier gets his own shelf.
2021
The kitchen expands
A proper pastry station and a second oven. Mara joins and desserts stop being an afterthought.
2026
The farm partnership
A 40-acre farm up the coast grows our tomatoes, stone fruit and herbs. The menu has never been shorter — or better.
04 — The people
The four who run it.
There are fourteen of us in total. These four set the tone — and argue about the menu the loudest.
Mara Villalobos
Pastry Chef
Trained in San Sebastián. Thinks in textures, dreams in olive oil, and makes a panna cotta you will text someone about.
Jonas Auerbach
Sommelier
Will talk your ear off about skin-contact wines — and will be right about every single one.
Renata Costa
General Manager
Runs the room on Valencia. Knows every regular by name, and which table they want.
The proof is on the plate.
Reservations, walk-ins, and one very good panna cotta.