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Located in Hatzikyriakio Piraeus, the menu is simple fried fish or shrimps with a huge Greek salad made from the best tomatoes and Greek Feta, Retsina from the barel, very cheap prices.
You'll listen to good music, enjoy free tapas with your drinks and mingle with interesting young crowds in a place that is packed every single night (avoid Saturdays).
The food in the small restaurant room is also lovely.
44 Triptolemou St.
Gazi
+30 210 3471844
Real Cretan food in a nice casual chic environment.
Fresh produce shipped daily from the island of Crete. Owner Stavros Theodorakis, famous Greek journalist is around most nights making sure his guests have a great night out.
Gamopilafo (Cretan risotto served at weddings) is the best you can get outside Crete. Around 40 euros per person including wine and dessert. Reservation recommended.
Vrasida 13 (oposite Athens Hilton)
Athens
+30-210/721-0501
They are called tapas in Spain, meze in Cyprus, and appetizers almost everywhere else. But in Greece, they are Orektika or Mezedas. These are the bite size yummies that are served hot or cold, and are supposed to be your starter but can actually be your entire meal. The appetizers in Greece are very special and can be found nowhere else. If you are on a budget, this is the best food to order, because they are tasty, inexpensive, nutritious and filling.
In Greek Tavernas, Ouzarias, and Mezedopolios. See here for more on Greek food: www.travelswise.com/greekfood.htm
A nice cold beer, a dish of Greek delicacies, the Parthenon above, the Ancient Agora below, crowds strolling by, lazy dogs and cats sleeping under the sun waiting for a treat, maybe a frappe afterwards. Dioscuri, a traditional outdoor café on the street that leads to the Acropolis has them all, and at minimal cost.
Dioscuron 13 Street, Plaka, Athens tel: 210 3219607
Metro: Monastiraki Station
Decorated with a fully wooden interior and resembling the original Cotton Club, this wonderful and cosy bistro awaits you from early in the morning for coffee until late at night. It's food menu is also exquisite. Every night there’s live music.
3 Kolokotroni Street (shopping arcade) opposite the Old Parliament, next to Habitat; nearest metro station: Syntagma. tel: 210 331 4915
Small, warm, cosy and bistro-like. You get amazing simple Greek food at good prices despite its location in Athens’ poshest neighbourhood. Best to reserve a table.
Kolonaki, Asklipiou Str; tel: 210 7259216
This area is a little warren of streets radiating out from Iroon Square. It’s close to Monastiraki, but being just a fraction further from the Agora and Acropolis, it’s a bit cheaper. There are lots of restaurants, bars and cafes all close by so you can just pick whichever place looks most tempting on the night.
Just north of Metro Monastiriki
A plate of small, freshly cooked doughnuts, smothered in honey syrup and cinammon and eaten warm.
Most tourists never try these as they are more of a winter treat than a summer one.
Sold everywhere once you know what you are looking for
Arguably not the best choice amongst hundreds of reasonably priced tavernas, mezedopoleia, souvlakeries and restaurants, but this is why you may (be pleased to) find it hard to spot a McDonalds. Expect to get a much more culturally-sensitive and healthier range of choices than what you would normally expect from a fast food chain.
In nearly every neighbourhood
www.goodys.com/page/
Athens has a number of important and interesting museums. The Museum of Musical instruments in Plaka may not be on the top of the list, but it is a very pleasant small museum, where you can examine beautifully handcrafted traditional musical instruments, listen to recordings of their sounds and meet the ancestors of the famous bouzouki. The location is tranquil and on the little square next to it (Platanos Square), you will find excellent traditional food (Taverna Platanos), and Rere's cafe, one of the few remaining hangouts for the locals of Plaka, where you can relax over a decent cup of Greek coffee made the way it should be. This is not hip Athens, it is Athens old style.
In Plaka, next to the 'Tower of the Winds' and the ruins of the old Madressa of Athens (one of the few surviving Ottoman landmarks), just of 'Platanos' Square;
Metro: Monastiraki
Superb ice cream bar. Sculptural blocks of unusual but totally scrummy ice cream dished up by the scoop until late in the evening. Frequented by young and old alike. The word is that this is THE best place to get ice cream in Athens. Sitting outside and watching happy people munch ice cream is enjoyable as shared knowing looks of indulgent bliss cross all linguistic barriers.
Takis / Aisopou 21, Psirri
Old style taverna in the once run down but newly trendy area of Exarchia. Don't expect sophistication, this is simple traditional Greek food chosen by the time-honoured method of pointing at it behind the counter.
Do expect however, a complete cross section of Greek society - from business men in suits to students to society kids from nearby Kolonaki - wonderful food, and a sense of the "real" Athens. A word of warning though, make sure you visit the toilet before you go as they too are of an authentic Greek nature.
Expect to pay no more than 10 euro a head for salad, main course and a beer.
Emanuelle Benaki
Exarchia
Nearest metro: Panepistimio
This is a hotel of the future. Facing a tranquil green park in the Kifissia area of north Athens, the hotel is boutique style with fluid design, soft style that mingles rounded forms with bright, lively colours. It offers internet TVs complete with cordless keyboards that come as standard. For more local interaction, guests can check out the hotel's two-level restaurant and bar, where the modern Greek, European and international flavours of the menu are mirrored in the cosmopolitan blend that make up the Semiramis' clientele. It is a must for those who love design hotels! ₤155 per night.
Harilaou Trikoupi 48, 14562 Kifissia, Athens, Greece Tel +30210 6284400 Fax +30210 6284499 www.semiramisathens.com
Traditional Greek taverna fare with the added advantage of being served hot (and not lukewarm, the fate of so many Greek dishes). Has an excellent array of casseroles and not to be missed fish soup – all viewable in the kitchen. Barrelled wine and bottled retsina also good. This is the taverna that true Athenians will go to. Average price of meal for one (with wine): €16.
Byzantino taverna, Kydathinaion Street, 18, Plaka; Tel: 210 332 7368; Open: 9am-2am Mon-Sat; Nearest metro: Akropoli/ Syntagma
Good red wine, delicious food, nice music, fascinating wooden Greek decoration and low prices. Be there on Fridays when the food is freshly made for the rest of the weekend.
9 Anaxagora Street, Tavros
Karavitis is a very nice traditional taverna that is central, but located far enough from the tourist area that it remains uniquely Greek. A good sign is that it is always full of locals. The food is traditional, inexpensive and delicious. Also, if you go on a Friday or Saturday night you might be lucky enough to experience some live entertainment courtesy of an old gentleman who sings to you whilst playing his guitar.
The place is very basic, with tables covered in paper tablecloths and walls lined with wine barrels. In the summer there is a vine-covered patio which is a delight to sit on. If traditional is what you are after, it does not get much more traditional than this.
Located near the Panathenaic Stadium and across the street from the statue of Harry Truman. It is at the corner of Arktinou and Pafsania Street just off the main street of Vassileos Konstandinou in the district of Pangrati (exact address is 35 Arktinou and 4 Pausaniou);
nearest metro: Evangelismos;
tel: 2107215155; open 8pm-1:30am.
A welcome relief from tzatziki-overload, the Pak is five minutes walking distance from the centre, with great atmosphere, friendly staff and good quality Indian favourites (from 10 euros). Upstairs is a special area with low tables and cushions to sit on the floor if you're feeling particularly exotic...
13 Menandrou Street; tel: 210 321 9412/210 324 2225;
nearest metro: Monastiriki/Omonia
Plaka's a tourist trap with some rubbish restaurants but irresistably pretty on a spring evening, so what do you do?
Go to To Kafeneio - the locals’ favourite, tucked away on a sidestreet. It's got a limited but great quality mezedes menu, and a local feel. Not to be missed are the meatballs with 'special' sauce (patented, apparently) and fava dip.
1, Epicharmou Street, Plaka;
tel: 210 324 6916;
nearest metro: Acropolis or Monastiriki;
www.tokafeneio.gr
If you want to know what Greeks choose to eat when they go out then the answer is meat, meat, and more meat washed down with the odd chip or bit of salad. And there is no better place to enjoy this than in the hills of Fyli, a few miles north of Athens.
To get there you drive out of town through the massive gypsy slum of Ano Liossia (a sight that many Greeks would prefer you didn't see) before climbing up the slopes of Mt Parnitha to Fyli itself.
You will know you have reached Phyli by the sight of dead sheep and goats hanging outside doors. These aren't butcher's shops as many think at first, but the restaurants themselves, and the bodies are lunch. Not one for the vegetarians, or the sensitive since there are dozens of these tavernas within a couple of miles of each other, Greeks aren't squeamish about where meat comes from.
In winter you eat inside, warmed by vast, open wood fires; in summer everything moves out into the garden. Meat is sold by weight, and the prices are very reasonable. Someone I knew boasted of once having eaten a whole lamb by himself. Compare that to the price of two weedy little chops in Britain. Wash it down with a few jugs of home made wine, pulled from a massive barrel then wander out into the hills and find a tree to sleep it off under.
On the slopes of Parnitha on the old road to Thiva
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