It seemed like old times, sitting in the William Tell over lunch with two of Vancouver's legendary restaurateurs. Opposites in style and cuisine, both possess charisma in spades and an innate sense of hospitality. Like the William Tell's Erwin Doebeli, Aristedes Pasparakis, who put Greek food on the local map 30 years ago with Orestes', knows what makes restaurants tick.

Where the William Tell is classic and polished, Orestes' was a feel-good, let-your-hair-down sort of place where, Pasparakis says, "You could do things that you might get arrested for somewhere else." Like dancing on the tables, cavorting with the belly dancers, smashing glasses, having a mad bun fight, or watching, heart in throat, as a knife-wielding cook gave chase to a waiter.

Though the original Orestes' has been closed for more than 20 years, the lessons-both what to do and what not to do-I learned about the restaurant business from Pasparakis and partner Blaine Culling during an eight-year stint at Orestes' are indelible, as are memories of famous and infamous diners, wild and crazy evenings, vats of retsina, and platters of mezethes.

When their eight-year partnership ended-Pasparakis's and Culling's empire had grown to include Souvlaki, Pasparos Taverna, Orestes' Pacific, Trimble's, Emilio's, and Orestes' Calgary-Pasparakis left Vancouver for Toronto, where he opened several restaurants, including the Temporary Calamari Joint, aptly named as it lasted a mere six months. Other stops? Victoria, Los Angeles, and Athens, where he developed and consulted on 65 restaurants (mostly Greek) and had an ownership stake in 25.

Pasparakis flashed onto the scene in Vancouver in the '70s and got his PhD in metallurgy while catering at UBC's International House. (Stories about orgies and excess are mostly true.) Orestes' was next, and he took Greek cooking from a steam-table-and-casserole culture to an í  la minute style. Food was fresher and tastier, and had texture and visual appeal-sex appeal, too. Pasparakis says, "Food is sexual and sensual. It must make you want to touch it, to taste it, to fuck it."

In his just-released cookbook, New Greek Cuisine: Fresh and Modern Recipes From Aristedes' Kitchen (HarperCollinsCanada, $26.95), Pasparakis's current repertoire includes healthier, fast-cooking dishes, many of them updates of his Orestes' recipes that I know well. Part of my job then, because our Greek cooks spoke little English (swearing in Greek became a necessity), was buying the food and costing out each recipe. The cuisine was basic and healthy. Good thing too: it was needed to offset the oceans of booze that flowed through the place.

Pasparakis's dishes, then and now, use the three defining Greek ingredients: olive oil, lemons, and dried oregano. The recipes in New Greek Cuisine are simple and cook quickly using his "two non-stick pans and a blender" method. Pans are heated on high for three minutes, ingredients added, tossed, sauced, assembled, and eaten. Including prep, most recipes take 30 minutes or less.

Do read the introduction-as you should with every cookbook. This is where you'll get a sense of the cook and his style, what's in his head, and what's ahead. (Noted food writer Byron Ayanoglu collaborates.) The recipes are tasty and flavourful, and require only basic skills. Faves? A sublime avgolemono (chicken-and-rice soup), calamari in burnt mustard salad (hint: tubes cut into bias strips are more tender than rings), prawns tourkolimano, and lamb with mushrooms.

Pasparakis's motivation? Women. "Greeks believe that nothing in a man's life is of value unless it is done for the sake of a woman's happiness," he says, "or for a woman's pleasure, or was at least inspired by a woman." This would account for the mainly female crowd that turned out for his recent book launch/cooking demo at Barbara-Jo's Books to Cooks. (Pasparakis counted six ex-girlfriends.)

I doubt we've seen the last of Pasparakis. Proof? He's on the road, filming an itinerant cooking show called Two Pans and a Blender. In the can so far are 13 episodes of cooking throughout Morocco and 13 from Chile. And then there are always more restaurants to create, too”¦

Find Pasparakis's Prawns Tourkolimano recipe from New Greek Cuisine here.