Stamatis Misomikes, a chef from Rhodes won the 2016 European Young Chef award. Celebrity chef Joan Roca presented the award to Misomikes. Roca along with an international jury judged the ten finalists from ten different regions of Europe.

When Peter Clements, mayor of Australia's second largest island, Kangaroo Island, visited Mytilene last summer for the 14th Islands of the World International Conference, he was taken aback by the hospitality and the genuine way in which he was welcomed by the Greeks.