- Athens
- /
- eating
- (33)
-
Greece
We stumbled on this excellent restaurant in Plaka and loved it because it's a real Greek restaurant for locals too, and beautifully set in a quiet little square with a huge plane tree (platanos.) All the food was great, but make sure you sit outside - indoors is a bit grim!
4 Diogenous, Athens
+30 210322-0666
Google map: bit.ly/k5o5Pb
A traditional restaurant (taverna) with a name kept alive since 1850. Dishes from all over Greece, large portions, house wine and a unique atmosphere. Experience a meal like a local.
Aisopou 4 – Psirri, Athens
Tel: 210 3211565
210 3211051
Athen's Central Market is packed full of stalls selling mouthwatering Greek food - cheeses, olives and dried fruit, but it is essentially a meat market.
If you really want to eat like the locals, and fancy some cheap and filling fare away from the overpriced restaurants in Plaka, brave the tavernas in the centre, feeding hungry workers and hung-over clubbers with steaming bowls of 'Patsas', tripe soup.
Epeiros and Papandreou are the most authentic, with stoves simmering over with huge pots of chickpeas and all manner of tripe soups, which the cooks swear are cholesterol-free and have medicinal properties.
The science behind that may be sketchy, but a bowl of the soup blasts hangovers away after one too many glasses of ouzo, and the restaurants are incredibly atmopsheric, with tables crammed with loudmouth market workers day and night. I opted for the Mayeritsa which is a tripe soup made with an egg-lemon sauce, and after a few nervous spoonfuls, found myself licking the bowl clean.
If you can't face the tripe, pick from plates piled high with lamb so tender it falls off the bone, roasted potatoes and bottles of delicious red wine.
Between Sofokleous & Evripidou, Athinas 42
One of the most trendy fish taverns in Hadjykyriakio. Try the Retsina wine, the shrimps and the best Greek salad made by Lazaros the owner.
Hatzikiriakou 126
HATZIKIRIAKIO
Tel: 210 4514226
www.athensguide.org/athens-restaurants.html
Located in trendy Gazi among lively clubs, Sardelles has fresh Greek seafood at affordable prices. There’s a selection of decent salads and fish dishes, including delicious grilled sardines which are a bit of a specialty and where the restaurant gets its name. Tables on the pavement make it a pleasant al-fresco spot in summer.
Persefonis 15, Gazi
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
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
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
Athenians like to eat out and not just on grand occasions. So if you want to avoid the overpriced tourist traps in the centre then just jump on a bus heading out from the centre then get off twenty minutes or so later and look around you.
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
Is this your business?Search Been there
