Greek Chef is Hollywood Star Scarlett Johansson’s Confidant

Dimitris Sassiaridis, Scarlett’s ex-husband Romain Dauriac and Scarlett Johannson. Credit: Dimitris Siasiaridis / Facebook

Greek chefs are celebrated around the world, so it’s no surprise that one of them is friends  with actress Scarlett Johansson. Dimitris Siasiaridis, a successful owner of four Paris restaurants, has become the occasional confidant of the two-time Academy Award nominee.

Speaking to Greek TV last week, Siasiaridis said that he met Johansson in 2014, through her then husband, Frenchman Romain Dauriac, the owner of an advertising agency. She approached him with plans about her own culinary firm.

Eventually they agreed on her brand and became partners. Together, they opened the first popcorn store in Paris. In addition to being business partners, they became fast friends and chatted occasionally over the next seven years.

“We had such a good rapport, that we kept in touch even after the popcorn store opened and she left Paris,” he told Alpha TV. “Our business relationship lasted for many years and eventually we became good friends.”

Four years ago, then Greek Finance minister Euclid Tsakalotos was speaking in Parliament. During a debate with then-opposition leader, current PM Kyriakos Mitsotakis, about primary surpluses, Tsakalotos attempted to show that wishes and reality are two different things.

Former Finance Minister admires Scarlett Johansson

That’s when he mentioned that he wished he could have a cocktail with Scarlett Johansson, but that obviously wouldn’t happen. Siasiaridis says that he was the one who informed the actress of the Finance Minister’s comment about her.

He says that he told her how much Tsakalotos admired her. “That’s why when asked in an interview a few days later, she was prepared to respond,” the Greek chef claims. He was referring to a short interview she subsequently conducted with Greek TV.

Greek film critic Thodoris Koutsogiannopoulos interviewed the actress in Paris and asked her to comment on Tsakalotos’s wish. “Alright, that sounds interesting,” was Johansson’s initial response. Subsequently she started laughing, saying “That’s very funny.”

“I never thought I would be on the Greek parliamentary floor, but there you have it,” she continued. “That should go on the record somewhere,” she said jokingly.

“We had lots of laughs after I relayed to her the Tsakalotos statement,” Siasiaridis recalls.

Greek chef owns four Paris restaurants

Siasiaridis is the owner of no less than four successful restaurants in the culinary Mecca of Paris and he is the co-founder of a popular catering company with products that bear his own brand name, “Dimitris.” But these are not his only accomplishments.

At 37, he is a member of the Greek French innovation network Mazinnov. The restaurateur is also the artistic director of the Greek dance academy in France, Parthenon Académie de Danses, as well as a member of the Parisian Orchestra.

Over the last decade, Siasiaridis has expressed his remarkable artistic gifts in a full range of cultural pursuits in Paris. His primary aim has always been sharing traditional Greek cuisine and music with the Parisians.

Born in Paris in January of 1984 to Greek parents from Thessaloniki and Imathia, he was introduced to the world of cooking at a very young age by his family. As a teenager in Paris, Siasiaridis used to run every day after school back to his family’s small restaurant, near the Opera House.

Working there every day to help with the family business, he learned such culinary skills that in 2007 he managed to open his very own restaurant in Paris. Today, just 14 years later, the Greek chef owns four restaurants in the City of Lights.