Athens Meal Round-Up

This post is quite, quite overdue - I'm putting the finishing touches on this post while sitting at Holly's parents' dining room table. Obviously, we have quite a backlog of blog posts to work through! But this should conclude our time in Athens. Next up, and hopefully coming soon, Rome! Stay tuned!

Finding good places to eat while on vacation has gotten much easier with the internet. Now, on top of recommendations from friends who’d been there, write-ups in guides, and tips from the locals, you can consult a wider community via Chowhound, Tripadvisor, and googling for “restaurants in Athens”. Of course, the internet can only do so much for you, and every visit to a new restaurant is still an adventure. But while we’ve had a few disappointments, our overall culinary experiences have been very positive. We’ve already blogged about some of the meals we’ve had in Athens (e.g., here and here), but for posterity and the benefit of any future Athens-bound travelers, here’s a round-up of the other places that we ate at.

Dinner, Day #2: Gyros

Our second dinner in Athens was on Clean Monday. As you know from our previous post, lots of places were closed that day, and the same was true for our first choice for dinner—Mystic Pizza. We were able to find a few places that were open, and eventually we agreed on a gyro place not too far from our hotel. Unfortunately we forgot to jot down the name of the place, and couldn’t find it online (increasingly rare these days). But if you exit from the north exit of the Syngrou-Fix Metro Station and head north on Drakou (away from the main street, Leoforos Syngrou), it’s on your left, between some other eateries, less than a block away. Here’s a Google Map showing its approximate location:

There were other customers inside, and they seemed to do a steady business in take-away orders, based on the number of people who walked in and out while we were conducting our reconnaissance (popularity with the local population is, of course, one of the cardinal rules of picking a place to eat in a foreign land).

When we walked in, they seemed surprised to see us, maybe because it was Clean Monday, or maybe because we didn’t look Greek (or at least, I didn’t). The first guy who greeted us didn’t speak much English, but we did manage to communicate that we’d like a table for two. He showed us to a table and brought us water and utensils, but someone else brought the (English) menus over and greeted us in English. She started by pointing out all the things they didn’t have that day, on account of it being a public holiday. In the end, I think we were effectively left with two choices for our main dishes: gyros or kebabs. We ordered a gyro plate, tzatziki, and fried potatoes (which we subsequently confirmed just means steak-cut french fries). While we waited for our food to arrive, we took a look around the place. The other patrons were locals, except for a pair of tourists from England (we know because we saw them the next day at the Acropolis Museum, and because they had English accents). The atmosphere was definitely homely and relaxed—plastic tablecloths, well-used furniture, a handful of photographs on the wall, nothing fancy at all. Similarly, when the food came, it was quite unremarkable to look at (and we completely forgot to take any photos--sorry!).

But the food was really good, and quite well-priced. Holly gave the tzatziki slightly lower marks than the one we tried at Aschimopapo, but decided it was still better than most tzatziki in the US. The gyro meat was delicious – tender and moist, but full of flavor and roasted just right. The potatoes were excellent too (although admittedly it’s hard for fried potatoes not to taste good). We agreed that the restaurant was just the sort of place that we’d go for a good and simple meal without any fuss. In fact, that’s probably why most of the local customers were there that night.   

Lunch, Day #4

For our second-last day in Athens, we had identified two restaurants in Athens: Tzitzikas kai Mermingas (TM), and Kuzina. TM was recommended by Lonely Planet and had gotten some positive reviews on Chowhound, while Kuzina came to my attention via Chowhound. From the reviews, we knew TM had a set lunch menu, and since it was on our way from the Ancient Agora to the Benaki Museum, we figured we’d drop in there for lunch. Well, we got there a little after noon, and found that they didn’t open till 1pm (Greek meals tend to start later than we’re used to in the US). We were hungry though, and since we had some time to kill, we popped on over to Ariston, a little bakery that’s been around forever, just off Syntagma Square and not too far from TM. We picked up a mushroom and cheese pie, pictured below:

Yes, we took a bite (or two) before we remembered to snap a photo.
But all the better to show you the contents of the pie!

The pie was a bit disappointing, given the uniformly positive press we’d read about Ariston. I thought about going back to try another, but it was almost 1pm and time for lunch (the pie, after all, was merely a pre-appetizer). The TM set menu offered us several choices, and between the two of us, we had:

A tomato and cucumber salad, with feta.

Dolmades, but wrapped in “spring onions” instead of grape leaves
(not what we’d call spring onions in the US or Singapore,
but definitely some sort of onion cousin).

A fried seafood basket (as an interesting aside, because Greeks really care about getting their seafood fresh, restaurants have to indicate on their menus if a dish has frozen seafood, which ours did).

A mushroom and beef stew.

A semolina cake with ice cream.

The total cost was €36.50. This included two glasses of the house wine as well. We weren’t overwhelmed by the food. It was good, but a little underwhelming given some of the positive reviews we had read and the price (relative price in Athens—by the time we reached northern Europe, the price would have been a steal). This was one of those meals where none of the dishes were per se bad: The salad was light and tasty enough, but nothing special; the wrapped onions were okay but the flavors weren’t especially strong; the fried seafood was frozen, not fresh, and so while it was still good, it wasn’t amazing; and the stew and the dessert were similar—good but forgettable. TM could have just had a bad day, or perhaps we didn’t choose the best dishes. It’s also possible that since we had just eaten at Mani Mani the night before, and had amazing meals in Athens up till now, our standards were a little higher than they otherwise would be. Nonetheless, lunch at TM probably merited a 7 out of 10, but no more.

Dinner, Day #4

That same night, we decided to do a late dinner at Kuzina. Kuzina is located on a stretch of restaurants along the northern border of the Acropolis, and some of its neighbors are definitely tourist-oriented. We’d walked past that stretch before, and seen multiple signs for “tourist menus”, “authentic Greek taverna,” and been greeted by multiple people trying to entice us in for a meal. Kuzina, however, did not. In fact, by the time we got there at almost 10pm, many of the other places had closed for the night and we were a little worried that Kuzina would be too. But when we opened the door, we were greeted by the sounds of laughter, conversation, and clinking glasses. Clearly, its customers were having a good time. We had heard that the views of the Acropolis from a window table on the upper floor were fantastic, but completely forgot to ask for one, and so got a table on the first floor instead, where we were able to observe the bar, parts of the kitchen, and the other customers (a good mix of locals and locals entertaining overseas guests).

Kuzina was pretty thinly staffed – we only saw one waiter and the manager the whole evening, not counting people in the kitchen. But they were both very pleasant and friendly (we had read a review to the contrary, so this was a relief). And the food experience was excellent. I ordered their dinner prix fix menu, and Holly ordered a couple of additional dishes (she wasn't feeling 100%). We had:

Potato croquettes

Beet and walnut salad

A garden salad

Roasted duck

A chicken, cheese and spinach flatbread

Baked apple and vanilla ice-cream with raspberry sauce  

 Chocolate and cream dessert

Dinner cost us €59.40, including wine for us both (I may have had a second glass). We were wowed by the food, and the flavors were well-balanced and tasty. The croquettes weren’t over-fried, and the consistency was just right – they held together well without being either too wet or too dry. The roast duck was moist, which is hard to get right with duck, and the sauce perfectly complemented the taste of the duck. Both salads were excellent, and the dressings really accentuated the flavors of the vegetables (which were fresh and really flavorful in and of themselves. And I don’t even like beets that much!). The flatbread was excellent too. The desserts were just the icing on the cake (and so good that I think we practically licked the dishes clean). We left happy, and the midnight walk back to our hotel was magical – clear black skies, and the Acropolis lit up like a city on a hill.

Taken with a cellphone camera - much lovelier in person.

In Conclusion…

Of all our meals in Athens, our top three were: (1) Aschimopapo, (2) Mani Mani, and (3) Kuzina. The food at each was excellent and our experiences were fantastic. But we really didn’t have any bad meals our entire time there. And while the country has seen better times, the people we met were incredibly friendly and warm. Hopefully Greece pulls through this crisis and sees better days. In the meantime, though, we'd still encourage people to visit. And if anyone wants a map of Athens to help them plan a trip, here's the one we put together for ours. Next up, Rome!