When Storytelling Becomes Experience

The strength of the project also lies in its ability to turn these stories into accessible, engaging experiences for a wider audience. The highlight was a performative dinner open to the public in Greece, where the collected testimonies took shape through food, storytelling, and direct participation. The experience, designed by QUALIA with the Bite Club format, takes people on a journey where each dish conveys an emotion or theme that emerged from the interviews. It’s not just about listening—it’s about entering these stories through the senses, experiencing them firsthand.


During the event, a live narration guided participants through a multi-course menu, weaving together real-life stories and the atmosphere of the dinner itself. The stories collected in Hungary were presented alongside those from Greece, creating a transnational dimension that brought both similarities and differences to light. The public was not just a passive audience but was actively involved in a process that encouraged empathy, listening, and reflection.


Another example is Fetaverse, an experiential event dedicated to feta cheese and Greek culinary heritage, where tastings are combined with myths, oral histories, discussions on sustainability and climate change, and participatory cooking activities.
											

										
											


												

A Collaboration with a Forward-looking Vision

The project is also the result of strong collaboration between two organizations with complementary expertise. QUALIA, founded in 2021 by Kleri Bakoura and Alexandros Touloumtzidis, works at the intersection of culture, gastronomy, and performance, creating immersive experiences that blend historical research with contemporary creativity. Felelős Gasztrohős, a Hungarian organization active since 2012, is a leading voice in promoting sustainability in dining and brings to the project a well-established network of professionals and solid educational experience. The two organizations met through the Slow Food network at Terra Madre (Turin, Italy), where they discovered a shared vision based on equity, sustainability, and putting people at the center of food systems.


The interviews in both Athens and Budapest were conducted by QUALIA, in close collaboration with Felelős Gasztrohős. Thanks to their strong network within the hospitality industry and the trust they have built over the years with professionals in the sector, Felelős Gasztrohős played a crucial role in identifying and connecting with interviewees. QUALIA then designed and conducted the interview process, focusing not only on gathering information, but also on creating spaces where participants could openly share personal experiences, emotions, and reflections about hospitality work, wellbeing, sustainability, and everyday challenges within the industry.


Both organizations worked together on the translation, interpretation, and editing of the material, making the process deeply collaborative rather than divided into separate local initiatives. Throughout the interviews, new creative ideas naturally emerged from the stories themselves. One of the most important developments was the idea of transforming selected testimonies and emotional themes into immersive participatory experiences through Bite Club.


In this way, Behind the Apron fits fully within the “fair†approach promoted by Slow Food and its definition of good, clean, and fair food, addressing the issue of working conditions.


The organizers worked closely with a diverse range of hospitality workers, including many female participants who shared experiences connected to gender-based inequalities, emotional labor, work-life balance, and challenges related to visibility and recognition within the industry. The project doesn’t just highlighted problems; it built tools for awareness and participation by putting people and their stories front and center. It included voices from immigrant communities, particularly participants from Pakistan and the Philippines, whose stories highlighted questions of migration, identity, adaptation, precarity, and cultural contribution within hospitality work.


The project also engaged with LGBTQ+ participants, creating space for conversations around inclusion, identity, belonging, and workplace culture. Rather than approaching these groups as separate categories, the project aimed to understand how different lived experiences intersect within the hospitality sector and shape people’s everyday realities.


An important aspect was also exploring how the idea of “sustainability†is understood differently depending on social, cultural, and personal contexts. For some participants, sustainability was connected to environmental practices and food systems; for others, it was deeply linked to mental health, fair working conditions, economic survival, inclusion, and community support. This diversity of perspectives became one of the project’s strongest elements, approaching sustainability not as a fixed concept, but as a lived and human experience shaped by different communities and realities.


To look “behind the apron†means recognizing that every food experience is the result of collective work, people, relationships, and lived experiences. Giving voice to these stories is not just an act of storytelling, but a concrete step toward a fairer, more conscious, and more human hospitality sector.


Paola Nano
											

																	

						
					
					




					




					
					


						



							


								

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15 Jun 2026				

Building a Fairer Hospitality Industry Across Greece and Hungary