Kentrikon
Cuisine: Classic Greek Home Cooking
Athens Area: Downtown Athens, near Syntagma
Decor: Oversized prints of the Acropolis and other classic touches in this simple, bustling lunch time favorite
Service: Good, fast, efficient
Wine list: Everything you need
Price: 15-20 euro a person
Address: 3 Kolokotroni str., Athens, Tel.: 210 3232482
Quick bite: Step into another era at Kentrikon, one of the all-time classic restaurants in Athens.
Kentrikon
Wow. I hadn’t been to this totally historic restaurant in the stoa off Kolokotroni Street since Nea moved from Christou Lada several years ago. It was like stepping into a time warp: hugely busy at midday when we went, with a constant flow of diners coming and going, waiters who were rushing and busy but also friendly and accommodating, and a comforting array of familiar faces, families, business people, and neighborhood locals in the crowd of hungry lunchers, all of whom obviously come here for the straightforward, classic Greek fare. You enter the wrought iron black gates that lead into the arcade where Kentrikon has been housed for decade and it reminds you of another Athens. The restaurant, although renovated, still has an old-world feel to it thanks to the wood paneling that comes half way up the walls and the old oversized black and white prints of Athens’ main attractions (Parthenon, etc.). The waiters know half the customers by name, including my dining companion. It’s a place not to talk too loud if you’re doing business, lest someone overhear you! It’s also a restaurant where dads feed their two year olds fried potatoes without seeming out of place amidst the suits and cell phones. The menu is huge and totally classic and that’s what is so great and comforting about it. All the food our grandmothers used to make on Sundays is on the menu: giouvetsi, soupies me spanaki, revithia me melitzanes, a whole range of ladera, of meat stew, of classic Greek pasta dishes and more. We stayed simple with a Lenten dish of seafood giouvetsi, which was very good (it needed a touch more sauce). My tsipoura riganati was excellent, tender, juicy and filled with the aromas of classic Greek cooking—that timeless triad of roasted tomatoes, lemon and oregano, all swimming in just enough oil to leave a delicious pool for dipping the bread at the end. The boiled vegetable salad is a generous portion of zucchini, broccoli, beets, cauliflower and carrots, the olive oil on the table is emerald green and the simplicity reassuring in these complicated times. We opted out of the other classic, a tuna salad, which I was tempted to order. The waiters, despite the lunchtime rush, were attentive. The end came with another classic, at the insistence of my dining companion: the crème caramele, made on the premises and really very good. Light, not too sweet, and with the perfect texture caramel on top and around the little mound of soft, cold, set cream. The throwback to another era is something I like. If I worked downtown, I’d definitely come here a few times a week. It’s everything most of us don’t bother to cook anymore ourselves, and everything we miss about this ever more violent, confused city: good old-fashioned values.
Kentrikon Tel.
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Metaxourgeio
Metaxourgeio
Cuisine: Classic Taverna Fare
Area: Downtown Athens
Decor: Rustic Retro
Service: OK
Wine List: Small and decent; house wine is a light rose
Prices: Around 20-30 euro a person
Address: 25 Myllerou & 1 Leonidiou str., Avdi Square, Metaxourgeio, Tel.: 210 7050103, 6944678930
Quick Bite: Decent taverna fare in a happening neighborhood where bar-hopping will follow your Greek salad.
Gazi, Keramikos, Metaxourgeio. These are the areas of so many Athenians’ nights out, mine included. On the last several forays down there, roaming the area looking for parking, I couldn’t help but notice one of the last of the Moheekan: an 80-year old taverna right on the corner of Leonidiou Street that looked great from the outside. Dating the 1933, Metaxourgeio as this simple place is called, reminds anyone of another era, one we all kind of yearn for these days, an era when tavernas were the meeting point of whole groups of the population, where music happened and the food was good but secondary to the talk.
This place circa 2009 has gone through a major renovation, of course. And I am sorry to say that the outside touches a lot more nostalgic notes than the inside. For one, two floors have been added. But beyond that, the patina is all new, despite the exposed stone clichés, the wood, the general air of imposed rusticity. Only the great big, old wooden staircase, a little uneven at each step, harkens to another time.
It was very quiet the Tuesday night we visited Metaxourgeio, as Tuesday nights are apt to be throughout most of the Athens dining scene. The menu here is classic taverna fare, executed competently from what we could see by the spate of plates we ordered, but in need of something extra, some individual brushstroke to give the food a little character. The tigania, for example, pan-fried pork, unctuous tomato sauce and delicious fried potatoes (which had soaked up a fair amount of sauce, making them even better) was over salted and unnuanced. The melitzanosalata, my own bellweather, the dish by which I judge many a restaurants, was the standard mayonnaised up commercial rendition, chunky but almost milky, with none of that smoky aroma that draws so many of us to countless eggplant dishes. We ordered the florina peppers clay baked with feta, a very mediocre rendition of a simple, but, when well prepared, delicious, dish. Here, the peppers came straight out of a jar, so there was no sweetness to counter the saltiness of the cheese, only brininess. Ditto on the eggplant baked with cheese, which was brought out by mistake but which we kept. I ordered the stewed eggplant as a main course; when these two dishes were side by side, the only thing that distinguished them was the addition of feta in the one. The salad, a medley of winter greens and radicchio came with whole, huge pieces of arugula and other greens that made it awkward to eat.
Grilled salmon came laden with vegetables every which way: boiled zucchini, cauliflower, potatoes, and greens. The plate was overloaded and the main part of it bland and dried out. Saving grace here: the portion is large. Portions are generally generous, as evinced in the last dish we sampled, the pork chops, which were simple but well cooked.
Metaxourgeio could be better, lots better, if only the kitchen makes an effort to do something a little interesting. This is a menu that has played out in Greek restaurants all over the world. A lot of us love simple Greek fare, but we also like the sense of effort that goes into designing a menu aimed at showcasing something original, even if it’s simple. That’s what is lacking here.
Cuisine: Classic Taverna Fare
Area: Downtown Athens
Decor: Rustic Retro
Service: OK
Wine List: Small and decent; house wine is a light rose
Prices: Around 20-30 euro a person
Address: 25 Myllerou & 1 Leonidiou str., Avdi Square, Metaxourgeio, Tel.: 210 7050103, 6944678930
Quick Bite: Decent taverna fare in a happening neighborhood where bar-hopping will follow your Greek salad.
Gazi, Keramikos, Metaxourgeio. These are the areas of so many Athenians’ nights out, mine included. On the last several forays down there, roaming the area looking for parking, I couldn’t help but notice one of the last of the Moheekan: an 80-year old taverna right on the corner of Leonidiou Street that looked great from the outside. Dating the 1933, Metaxourgeio as this simple place is called, reminds anyone of another era, one we all kind of yearn for these days, an era when tavernas were the meeting point of whole groups of the population, where music happened and the food was good but secondary to the talk.
This place circa 2009 has gone through a major renovation, of course. And I am sorry to say that the outside touches a lot more nostalgic notes than the inside. For one, two floors have been added. But beyond that, the patina is all new, despite the exposed stone clichés, the wood, the general air of imposed rusticity. Only the great big, old wooden staircase, a little uneven at each step, harkens to another time.
It was very quiet the Tuesday night we visited Metaxourgeio, as Tuesday nights are apt to be throughout most of the Athens dining scene. The menu here is classic taverna fare, executed competently from what we could see by the spate of plates we ordered, but in need of something extra, some individual brushstroke to give the food a little character. The tigania, for example, pan-fried pork, unctuous tomato sauce and delicious fried potatoes (which had soaked up a fair amount of sauce, making them even better) was over salted and unnuanced. The melitzanosalata, my own bellweather, the dish by which I judge many a restaurants, was the standard mayonnaised up commercial rendition, chunky but almost milky, with none of that smoky aroma that draws so many of us to countless eggplant dishes. We ordered the florina peppers clay baked with feta, a very mediocre rendition of a simple, but, when well prepared, delicious, dish. Here, the peppers came straight out of a jar, so there was no sweetness to counter the saltiness of the cheese, only brininess. Ditto on the eggplant baked with cheese, which was brought out by mistake but which we kept. I ordered the stewed eggplant as a main course; when these two dishes were side by side, the only thing that distinguished them was the addition of feta in the one. The salad, a medley of winter greens and radicchio came with whole, huge pieces of arugula and other greens that made it awkward to eat.
Grilled salmon came laden with vegetables every which way: boiled zucchini, cauliflower, potatoes, and greens. The plate was overloaded and the main part of it bland and dried out. Saving grace here: the portion is large. Portions are generally generous, as evinced in the last dish we sampled, the pork chops, which were simple but well cooked.
Metaxourgeio could be better, lots better, if only the kitchen makes an effort to do something a little interesting. This is a menu that has played out in Greek restaurants all over the world. A lot of us love simple Greek fare, but we also like the sense of effort that goes into designing a menu aimed at showcasing something original, even if it’s simple. That’s what is lacking here.
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Dakos
Dakos
Cuisine: New age Cretan cooking from one of Greece's most famous chefs, Christoforos Peskias
Athens Area: Downtown - Kolonaki
Decor: Olive motifs, light furnishings, comfortable
Service: Can be a little intrusive opinionated but overall competent and efficient
Wine list: Cretan and other vintages
Prices: More than you’d think! Around 35-45 euros per person
Address: 6-8 Tsakalof str., Kolonaki, Tel.: 2103604020
Quick Bite: Cretan cuisine, snails and all, goes contemporary in this chain concept that aims to sell (and reap) the benefits of Greece's healthiest regional cooking.
Review
Wednesday night in the middle of December isn’t typically a great night to go on restaurant outings in Athens. Most places are pretty quiet. But we set out to visit friends who had just moved downtown and we wanted quiet. A place to talk and eat at a reasonable price. So, we opted for the new cooking at Dakos.
Dakos, which refers to the round Cretan barley rusk that once took every Athens’ restaurant menu by storm, is a chain concept started by Greece’s pork kings, cold-cut makers Creta Farm, who patented a method for taking some (not as much as one might think, despite the hype) of the fat out of its pork products and replacing it with olive oil. They began the Dakos concept about a year and a half ago, and had worked with several top name chefs before snatching up one of the biggest names of all, Christoforos Peskias, whose restaurant 48 closed its doors despite uncountable accolades.
Dakos is not exactly a fast food restaurant and not exactly a family-dining concept. It aims to be an upscale chain that projects the aura of healthful, casual, but somewhat gourmet dining. There are several outposts. We visited the original one on Tsakalof Street in the heart of Kolonaki.
You walk down a few steps into a large, cavernous space decked out in whites and beiges. An enviably huge wooden table occupies the middle of the room. A mural of a sprawling olive tree decorates one wall. The room is divided by an oversized “fish tank” seemingly filled with gurgling olive oil. Most seating is along the wall on comfortable banquettes.
Peskias has created a menu in various segments, which our waiter promoted with nonstop, intrusive references to his own opinions about what goes best with what. For example, he tried to steer us clear of the cabbage salad with carrots, apples and dill, because the ginger was out of sync with the rest of what we ordered. The salad, by the way, was delicious.
Under the menu heading “trendy small eat [sic],” is a listing of various miniature barley rusks (dakos) with upscale toppings. Some, like the octopus, wild fennel and olive garnish, take their cue from classic Cretan cuisine. Others, like the foie gras and apaki, a traditional Cretan cured pork product also made by Creta Farm, speak of the chef’s penchant for mixing and matching various seemingly incongruous raw ingredients. We tried the eel with honey, which was good but stingy on portion size at 10.90 euro; the salmon tartar with Greek wild mountain tea (6.10 euro), worked very well, with the dako a good foil for the fattiness of the fish. The marinated anchovy topping with the chef’s signature roasted tomatoes and kafkalithres, a Cretan green, was delicious at 5.70 euro. Some of these came as small finger-food bites, others in one 10-cm dako that was not so easy to divide four ways. The pricing is weird. Why 10.90 and not 11 euro, for example?
My dinner mates sampled some of the fish entrees. The salmon with a wild greens crust was well-cooked, tender and crunchy but slightly burnt on top. I wasn’t crazy about the unctuous overcooked vegetable medley that accompanies it. The breaded pan-fried lavraki with lime sauce didn’t work as well for me. The potatoes, supposedly fried in olive oil, are pretty good.
The mix of classics with a twist and more creative fare gives Dako a pretty clear identity. We finished the meal with a wedge of cheesecake made with Cretan cheese and a sweetened dako base. It was a little weighty for its size, but the orange lightens it up.
Dakos is a modern Cretan restaurant that aims to spread the wings of Greece’s most famous regional cuisine. For the most part it works, but without any of the soulfulness that real Cretan cuisine communicates. The sense I get is that it’s a job for Peskias, and hopefully a lucrative one, but it’s not a mission.
Cuisine: New age Cretan cooking from one of Greece's most famous chefs, Christoforos Peskias
Athens Area: Downtown - Kolonaki
Decor: Olive motifs, light furnishings, comfortable
Service: Can be a little intrusive opinionated but overall competent and efficient
Wine list: Cretan and other vintages
Prices: More than you’d think! Around 35-45 euros per person
Address: 6-8 Tsakalof str., Kolonaki, Tel.: 2103604020
Quick Bite: Cretan cuisine, snails and all, goes contemporary in this chain concept that aims to sell (and reap) the benefits of Greece's healthiest regional cooking.
Review
Wednesday night in the middle of December isn’t typically a great night to go on restaurant outings in Athens. Most places are pretty quiet. But we set out to visit friends who had just moved downtown and we wanted quiet. A place to talk and eat at a reasonable price. So, we opted for the new cooking at Dakos.
Dakos, which refers to the round Cretan barley rusk that once took every Athens’ restaurant menu by storm, is a chain concept started by Greece’s pork kings, cold-cut makers Creta Farm, who patented a method for taking some (not as much as one might think, despite the hype) of the fat out of its pork products and replacing it with olive oil. They began the Dakos concept about a year and a half ago, and had worked with several top name chefs before snatching up one of the biggest names of all, Christoforos Peskias, whose restaurant 48 closed its doors despite uncountable accolades.
Dakos is not exactly a fast food restaurant and not exactly a family-dining concept. It aims to be an upscale chain that projects the aura of healthful, casual, but somewhat gourmet dining. There are several outposts. We visited the original one on Tsakalof Street in the heart of Kolonaki.
You walk down a few steps into a large, cavernous space decked out in whites and beiges. An enviably huge wooden table occupies the middle of the room. A mural of a sprawling olive tree decorates one wall. The room is divided by an oversized “fish tank” seemingly filled with gurgling olive oil. Most seating is along the wall on comfortable banquettes.
Peskias has created a menu in various segments, which our waiter promoted with nonstop, intrusive references to his own opinions about what goes best with what. For example, he tried to steer us clear of the cabbage salad with carrots, apples and dill, because the ginger was out of sync with the rest of what we ordered. The salad, by the way, was delicious.
Under the menu heading “trendy small eat [sic],” is a listing of various miniature barley rusks (dakos) with upscale toppings. Some, like the octopus, wild fennel and olive garnish, take their cue from classic Cretan cuisine. Others, like the foie gras and apaki, a traditional Cretan cured pork product also made by Creta Farm, speak of the chef’s penchant for mixing and matching various seemingly incongruous raw ingredients. We tried the eel with honey, which was good but stingy on portion size at 10.90 euro; the salmon tartar with Greek wild mountain tea (6.10 euro), worked very well, with the dako a good foil for the fattiness of the fish. The marinated anchovy topping with the chef’s signature roasted tomatoes and kafkalithres, a Cretan green, was delicious at 5.70 euro. Some of these came as small finger-food bites, others in one 10-cm dako that was not so easy to divide four ways. The pricing is weird. Why 10.90 and not 11 euro, for example?
My dinner mates sampled some of the fish entrees. The salmon with a wild greens crust was well-cooked, tender and crunchy but slightly burnt on top. I wasn’t crazy about the unctuous overcooked vegetable medley that accompanies it. The breaded pan-fried lavraki with lime sauce didn’t work as well for me. The potatoes, supposedly fried in olive oil, are pretty good.
The mix of classics with a twist and more creative fare gives Dako a pretty clear identity. We finished the meal with a wedge of cheesecake made with Cretan cheese and a sweetened dako base. It was a little weighty for its size, but the orange lightens it up.
Dakos is a modern Cretan restaurant that aims to spread the wings of Greece’s most famous regional cuisine. For the most part it works, but without any of the soulfulness that real Cretan cuisine communicates. The sense I get is that it’s a job for Peskias, and hopefully a lucrative one, but it’s not a mission.
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Aleria
23/6/2007
Aleria
Cuisine: Modern Greek/Hip neighbourhood
Athens Area: Downtown
Decor: modern baroque with a lot of different design elements competing for attention
Service: Friendly
Wine list: Greek & good beers
Prices: 40-45 euros per person
Address: 57 Megalou Alexandrou str., Metaxourgeio,Tel. 210 52 22 633
Besides being the name of an ancient Greek colony and, when spelled with two Ls, one of the strangest games on the internet, Aleria is the name of a relatively new restaurant in the coarse but chic neighborhood of Metaxourgio. The restaurant is a testimony to the transition this once poor industrial neighborhood is in the midst of. As we got out of the car, a drunk appeared begging for a little money. Across the road an old house sparkled new, recently renovated and obviously inhabited by cool, urban adventurers. Arab men clustered outside a cafeneion on another corner. Aleria, all sparkling, newly refurbished stone, shone from a distance.
The restaurant is housed in an old building that must have been in dire shape before the owners undertook the task of refurbishing it. It’s spacious and inviting and surprisingly ornate. One wall is covered with big flowered wallpaper. A meter-wide strip of glass borders the bar covering a kind of indoor, sub-ground “garden” with knick-knacks and gravel. One room is a lounge, with white leather couches. The floors are a mish m ash of wood, tiles and cracked marble. The light fixtures vary, from the main one, from which dangle forks and spoons, to others, hanging from baskets and little metal flower pots. There is nothing lean or minimalistic about this place, and the same holds true for its menu.
We sat in the spacious garden, waiting for about 15 minutes before our pleasant waiter had organized himself enough to bring us the basics: napkins, a menu, etc. Once he got started, the service was fine. That’s the thing about this place—the intentions are good, and they win points for trying!
The menu is impressive because it’s obviously the work of someone trying hard to be original. (It’s also very hard to read, because the print quality is poor.) The dishes all seem filled with good intentions, unusual ideas, but unrefined execution. The chef likes fruit, which he uses in a handful of starters, like the sesame-crusted feta Saganaki with vyssino and the cannelloni stuffed with bulgur and served with mango and pineapple sauce. We tried the latter: four upright cylinders of cannellini housed a filling of bulgur, shrimp and mussels. There is too much starch in the dish, the filling was loose and fell apart, the pasta was undercooked, even for this al-dente tongue, and the sauce light years away in terms of sweetness and overall compatibility. The plate, all black and shiny, looked pretty. We tried a stuffed mozzarella, which sounded unique but somehow got lost in translation: a beer-batter, fried ball of fresh mozzarella, stuffed with artichoke and sun-dried tomato. The filling was hardly noticeable and the cheese was unevenly heated, with one bite cold, almost frozen and the other warm. There is a technique issue that needs to be resolved! I liked the fruit and lettuce salad with smoked eel, although the mangos came unpeeled and the strawberries unhulled, making it a hassle to eat.
There is a host of pasta, risotto, meat, chicken and more. We settled on two fish dishes, the first a sfyrida fillet with ouzo sauce and spicy kritharaki and the second a fillet of sole cooked in a cheese crust. The sfyrida didn’t really work, mainly because the alcohol in the ouzo had not cooked off and the kritharaki added a heavy-handed component to a dish that could have been light and summery. I liked the sole and thought it came closest to bridging intentions with execution: crusted in parmesan and fried, it had nice texture, at once crunchy and tender; the fresh tomato sauce worked and the lime that seasoned it added just the right amount of spark.
Dessert was an unusual look at the old idea of halva ice cream: thin slices of frozen semolina halva stuffed with ice cream. It was, like so much else here, a really interesting idea but one that needed refinement in presentation, portion size, and flavor balance (way too much cinnamon).
Alleria was interesting because the menu is unlike anything I have seen in Athens recently. But the cook needs to step back and subtract, not add, to his repertoire of unusual, original dishes. The lesson here without a doubt, good intentions and all, is that less is more.
Aleria
Cuisine: Modern Greek/Hip neighbourhood
Athens Area: Downtown
Decor: modern baroque with a lot of different design elements competing for attention
Service: Friendly
Wine list: Greek & good beers
Prices: 40-45 euros per person
Address: 57 Megalou Alexandrou str., Metaxourgeio,Tel. 210 52 22 633
Besides being the name of an ancient Greek colony and, when spelled with two Ls, one of the strangest games on the internet, Aleria is the name of a relatively new restaurant in the coarse but chic neighborhood of Metaxourgio. The restaurant is a testimony to the transition this once poor industrial neighborhood is in the midst of. As we got out of the car, a drunk appeared begging for a little money. Across the road an old house sparkled new, recently renovated and obviously inhabited by cool, urban adventurers. Arab men clustered outside a cafeneion on another corner. Aleria, all sparkling, newly refurbished stone, shone from a distance.
The restaurant is housed in an old building that must have been in dire shape before the owners undertook the task of refurbishing it. It’s spacious and inviting and surprisingly ornate. One wall is covered with big flowered wallpaper. A meter-wide strip of glass borders the bar covering a kind of indoor, sub-ground “garden” with knick-knacks and gravel. One room is a lounge, with white leather couches. The floors are a mish m ash of wood, tiles and cracked marble. The light fixtures vary, from the main one, from which dangle forks and spoons, to others, hanging from baskets and little metal flower pots. There is nothing lean or minimalistic about this place, and the same holds true for its menu.
We sat in the spacious garden, waiting for about 15 minutes before our pleasant waiter had organized himself enough to bring us the basics: napkins, a menu, etc. Once he got started, the service was fine. That’s the thing about this place—the intentions are good, and they win points for trying!
The menu is impressive because it’s obviously the work of someone trying hard to be original. (It’s also very hard to read, because the print quality is poor.) The dishes all seem filled with good intentions, unusual ideas, but unrefined execution. The chef likes fruit, which he uses in a handful of starters, like the sesame-crusted feta Saganaki with vyssino and the cannelloni stuffed with bulgur and served with mango and pineapple sauce. We tried the latter: four upright cylinders of cannellini housed a filling of bulgur, shrimp and mussels. There is too much starch in the dish, the filling was loose and fell apart, the pasta was undercooked, even for this al-dente tongue, and the sauce light years away in terms of sweetness and overall compatibility. The plate, all black and shiny, looked pretty. We tried a stuffed mozzarella, which sounded unique but somehow got lost in translation: a beer-batter, fried ball of fresh mozzarella, stuffed with artichoke and sun-dried tomato. The filling was hardly noticeable and the cheese was unevenly heated, with one bite cold, almost frozen and the other warm. There is a technique issue that needs to be resolved! I liked the fruit and lettuce salad with smoked eel, although the mangos came unpeeled and the strawberries unhulled, making it a hassle to eat.
There is a host of pasta, risotto, meat, chicken and more. We settled on two fish dishes, the first a sfyrida fillet with ouzo sauce and spicy kritharaki and the second a fillet of sole cooked in a cheese crust. The sfyrida didn’t really work, mainly because the alcohol in the ouzo had not cooked off and the kritharaki added a heavy-handed component to a dish that could have been light and summery. I liked the sole and thought it came closest to bridging intentions with execution: crusted in parmesan and fried, it had nice texture, at once crunchy and tender; the fresh tomato sauce worked and the lime that seasoned it added just the right amount of spark.
Dessert was an unusual look at the old idea of halva ice cream: thin slices of frozen semolina halva stuffed with ice cream. It was, like so much else here, a really interesting idea but one that needed refinement in presentation, portion size, and flavor balance (way too much cinnamon).
Alleria was interesting because the menu is unlike anything I have seen in Athens recently. But the cook needs to step back and subtract, not add, to his repertoire of unusual, original dishes. The lesson here without a doubt, good intentions and all, is that less is more.
Elaia
6/9/2007
ELAIA
Cuisine: Traditional Greek
Athens Area: Plaka
Decor: Plaka kitsch
Service Competent
Wine List: Decent
Prices 35-45 Euro per person
Address: Erehtheos 16 & Erotokritou Str., Plaka, Athens
Tel. 2103249512
Category: Greek/Tourist Schlock/Plaka
Quick Bites: A pretty place for unknowing tourists.
Hope springs eternal--even when it comes to dining in the Plaka. And hope I had, indeed, as we set out battling the pre-election, pre-school traffic standstill to actually get downtown, the three-deep taxis outside the GB, the parking and even the political speeches of one ND member of parliament whose promises (or was it the TV cameras?) caused a crowd to block passage on one narrow corner of Navarhou Nikodimou. Our goal: the recently opened Elaia, on Erechtiou Street, just across the way from the taverna tou Psarra, which happens to be owned by the same folks.
Honestly, I don’t know what possessed me to go to the Plaka for dinner, beyond blind (some might say stupid) hope that this one restaurant with easy Greek name that rolls off the tongue and the wherewithal to actually send a card announcing its opening to members of the Greek press, might just buck the trend. It might just be the place for Greeks to go in the Plaka, away from tourists, away from croaking accordion players and rheumatoidal bouzouki players, a place that might actually make me feel like a Greek in the heart of Greekness.
It wasn’t quite so.
We had to climb and climb and climb, passed several levels of tables, to get to our ultimate destination, the rooftop. On the way up, I peeked into the dining room, with its bright murals faintly reminiscent of something idyllically ancient: brightly painted portraits and bucolic scenes, columns, etc. All the accoutrements of Plaka kitch, updated to circa 2007. The rooftop was lovely, though, with a fairly panoramic view of our chaotic city, and simply appointed, in contrast to the main dining room two levels below.
The place wasn’t too busy, but whoever was there, from what I could gather at least, was not Greek but a tourist.
Unlike the clientele, the menu here is extremely Greek, classic in its selection of tzatziki, melitzanosalata, Horiatiki, vrasti salata, fish of the day, grilled meats, and a few casseroles. There isn’t an ounce of imagination in any of the menu offerings, but there are a few funny translations. Rabbit Stifado, for example, is translated as “bunny” stew. Bugs or a Playboy version, I wondered….
We sampled a few of the classics, among them the simple beet salad, which was thoroughly bland. The beets themselves seem to lack their own basic character—not a hint of the earthy sweetness that makes a beet a beet. These were an insipid bunch of chunks on a plate, totally unseasoned before they left the kitchen. The boiled zucchini and horta had a little more going for it, in terms of texture and taste. The Cretan onion pies were the tastiest thing we had all night, simple, fried pastries filled with onions and fennel. Someone might actually back there making them, or, at the least, they’ve found a good source for the artisinal, frozen kind. I wanted to try the tyrokafteri to see if it was homemade, and it did seem to be mainly because it was smoother and creamier than most of the commercially prepared stuff.
The classic taverna dish of cheese-stuffed grilled squid was OK; the squid was a little tough and the cheese filling a little too dense, with barely a hint of any other layers of flavors. Even in this simple, classic dish, when it’s done well, it can be great. Here it was passable. I felt the same thing about the beef stewed with eggplant, a classic prepared competently but still lacking character. The sauce had no flavor nuances, none of the underlying sweetness from spices like cinnamon and allspice, to make it interesting. The eggplant was sufficiently tender and still kept its shape, but the meat was a little stringy.
We skipped the syrupy desserts.
Surely Elaia isn’t the worst example of Plaka fare, and I suppose in this day and age of something that’s not the worst could also be considered pretty good. Not by this critic! Elaia can—and should—be so much more. Instead it has succumbed to being one more soulless place in the Disneyland version of Greece: the Plaka.
ELAIA
Cuisine: Traditional Greek
Athens Area: Plaka
Decor: Plaka kitsch
Service Competent
Wine List: Decent
Prices 35-45 Euro per person
Address: Erehtheos 16 & Erotokritou Str., Plaka, Athens
Tel. 2103249512
Category: Greek/Tourist Schlock/Plaka
Quick Bites: A pretty place for unknowing tourists.
Hope springs eternal--even when it comes to dining in the Plaka. And hope I had, indeed, as we set out battling the pre-election, pre-school traffic standstill to actually get downtown, the three-deep taxis outside the GB, the parking and even the political speeches of one ND member of parliament whose promises (or was it the TV cameras?) caused a crowd to block passage on one narrow corner of Navarhou Nikodimou. Our goal: the recently opened Elaia, on Erechtiou Street, just across the way from the taverna tou Psarra, which happens to be owned by the same folks.
Honestly, I don’t know what possessed me to go to the Plaka for dinner, beyond blind (some might say stupid) hope that this one restaurant with easy Greek name that rolls off the tongue and the wherewithal to actually send a card announcing its opening to members of the Greek press, might just buck the trend. It might just be the place for Greeks to go in the Plaka, away from tourists, away from croaking accordion players and rheumatoidal bouzouki players, a place that might actually make me feel like a Greek in the heart of Greekness.
It wasn’t quite so.
We had to climb and climb and climb, passed several levels of tables, to get to our ultimate destination, the rooftop. On the way up, I peeked into the dining room, with its bright murals faintly reminiscent of something idyllically ancient: brightly painted portraits and bucolic scenes, columns, etc. All the accoutrements of Plaka kitch, updated to circa 2007. The rooftop was lovely, though, with a fairly panoramic view of our chaotic city, and simply appointed, in contrast to the main dining room two levels below.
The place wasn’t too busy, but whoever was there, from what I could gather at least, was not Greek but a tourist.
Unlike the clientele, the menu here is extremely Greek, classic in its selection of tzatziki, melitzanosalata, Horiatiki, vrasti salata, fish of the day, grilled meats, and a few casseroles. There isn’t an ounce of imagination in any of the menu offerings, but there are a few funny translations. Rabbit Stifado, for example, is translated as “bunny” stew. Bugs or a Playboy version, I wondered….
We sampled a few of the classics, among them the simple beet salad, which was thoroughly bland. The beets themselves seem to lack their own basic character—not a hint of the earthy sweetness that makes a beet a beet. These were an insipid bunch of chunks on a plate, totally unseasoned before they left the kitchen. The boiled zucchini and horta had a little more going for it, in terms of texture and taste. The Cretan onion pies were the tastiest thing we had all night, simple, fried pastries filled with onions and fennel. Someone might actually back there making them, or, at the least, they’ve found a good source for the artisinal, frozen kind. I wanted to try the tyrokafteri to see if it was homemade, and it did seem to be mainly because it was smoother and creamier than most of the commercially prepared stuff.
The classic taverna dish of cheese-stuffed grilled squid was OK; the squid was a little tough and the cheese filling a little too dense, with barely a hint of any other layers of flavors. Even in this simple, classic dish, when it’s done well, it can be great. Here it was passable. I felt the same thing about the beef stewed with eggplant, a classic prepared competently but still lacking character. The sauce had no flavor nuances, none of the underlying sweetness from spices like cinnamon and allspice, to make it interesting. The eggplant was sufficiently tender and still kept its shape, but the meat was a little stringy.
We skipped the syrupy desserts.
Surely Elaia isn’t the worst example of Plaka fare, and I suppose in this day and age of something that’s not the worst could also be considered pretty good. Not by this critic! Elaia can—and should—be so much more. Instead it has succumbed to being one more soulless place in the Disneyland version of Greece: the Plaka.
Almyra
13/9/2007
ALMYRA
Cuisine: Fish Taverna
Athens Area: Halandri, 20 minutes from downtown Athens
Decor: Lovely garden, classic interior
Wine List: Greek
Prices: 25 euro per person
Service: Friendly
Address: 39 Filikis Etairias str., Kato Halandri, Tel.: 2106819109
If casual’s your thing and you know the area, this place is pretty good. It may not be worth the trek though if time’s limited.
It’s great to discover easy, relaxed neighborhood places where the food is good, the service decent, and the prices totally human! There is, in fact, a dearth of such places in the environs of this idiosyncratic city. All too often I am drawn to the places that work under the limelight of fame. More often than not, they disappoint me! So, when I stumble on a place that toils away in the shadows of anonymity, humbly, putting out competent, tasty dishes for a loyal, albeit local, clientele, for a place not found in most restaurant listings even though it’s been around for three years or so, I get a particular sense of satisfaction/ .
I was more than pleasantly surprised a few Sundays ago when friends in Argyroupoli took us to Almyra. They knew the menu, they knew what to recommend, they knew the waiters and owners.
Almyra is light, comfortable, and thoroughly local. The garden is pleasant, set in blue and white, as is the inside, with the exception of the open-floor, barrel-storing cava, covered by glass and a great hit with my kids, who happened to be with us that Sunday afternoon. There is even a table down there, for private dining, I assume.
We sampled a bunch of mezedes, from the fava, which was very good, whipped to a smooth, velvety finish. The gavro cooked in grape leaves was not exactly what I had anticipated. The gavro was chopped and stuffed, dolma-like, into the leaves, which in turn were a little undercooked and tough. The execution of this dish needed a little work, but the idea drove home the fact that someone is back there in the kitchen actually thinking though dishes at this easy, neighborhood place. The shrimp with tsipouro and cream is a little more upscale, a rich dish, perhaps with a little too much cream sauce—even though we managed to use up our last crumbs of bread wiping the dish clean. The shrimp is whole and large enough to make for a filling portion. The plates looks pretty. We all liked the kavouropitakia, too, with their creamy seafood-crab filling and their crisp, fried phyllo, folded into triangles and sprinkled with sesame seeds. The grilled sardines were plentiful and very simple, with none of the fanfare that accompanies them, say, in the tavernas of Thessaloniki. No parsley, no onions. Just the fish, grilled and whole, perhaps a little dry, but that’s hard to control when the yard is hopping with people.
I liked my little sojourn to Almyra—I think because it reminded me of better days in this town, when you could get a decent meal in a pleasant place up the road from home, without paying through the roof for a little Sunday afternoon leisure.
ALMYRA
Cuisine: Fish Taverna
Athens Area: Halandri, 20 minutes from downtown Athens
Decor: Lovely garden, classic interior
Wine List: Greek
Prices: 25 euro per person
Service: Friendly
Address: 39 Filikis Etairias str., Kato Halandri, Tel.: 2106819109
If casual’s your thing and you know the area, this place is pretty good. It may not be worth the trek though if time’s limited.
It’s great to discover easy, relaxed neighborhood places where the food is good, the service decent, and the prices totally human! There is, in fact, a dearth of such places in the environs of this idiosyncratic city. All too often I am drawn to the places that work under the limelight of fame. More often than not, they disappoint me! So, when I stumble on a place that toils away in the shadows of anonymity, humbly, putting out competent, tasty dishes for a loyal, albeit local, clientele, for a place not found in most restaurant listings even though it’s been around for three years or so, I get a particular sense of satisfaction/ .
I was more than pleasantly surprised a few Sundays ago when friends in Argyroupoli took us to Almyra. They knew the menu, they knew what to recommend, they knew the waiters and owners.
Almyra is light, comfortable, and thoroughly local. The garden is pleasant, set in blue and white, as is the inside, with the exception of the open-floor, barrel-storing cava, covered by glass and a great hit with my kids, who happened to be with us that Sunday afternoon. There is even a table down there, for private dining, I assume.
We sampled a bunch of mezedes, from the fava, which was very good, whipped to a smooth, velvety finish. The gavro cooked in grape leaves was not exactly what I had anticipated. The gavro was chopped and stuffed, dolma-like, into the leaves, which in turn were a little undercooked and tough. The execution of this dish needed a little work, but the idea drove home the fact that someone is back there in the kitchen actually thinking though dishes at this easy, neighborhood place. The shrimp with tsipouro and cream is a little more upscale, a rich dish, perhaps with a little too much cream sauce—even though we managed to use up our last crumbs of bread wiping the dish clean. The shrimp is whole and large enough to make for a filling portion. The plates looks pretty. We all liked the kavouropitakia, too, with their creamy seafood-crab filling and their crisp, fried phyllo, folded into triangles and sprinkled with sesame seeds. The grilled sardines were plentiful and very simple, with none of the fanfare that accompanies them, say, in the tavernas of Thessaloniki. No parsley, no onions. Just the fish, grilled and whole, perhaps a little dry, but that’s hard to control when the yard is hopping with people.
I liked my little sojourn to Almyra—I think because it reminded me of better days in this town, when you could get a decent meal in a pleasant place up the road from home, without paying through the roof for a little Sunday afternoon leisure.
Zefkin
22/11/2007
Zefkin
Cuisine: Taverna and meze fare
Athens Area: Alimos, southern suburb
Decor: Simple, rustic
Wine list: Greek, house wine, Ikarian wine
Service: Friendly
Prices: 15-20 euro a person
Address: 46 Eleftherias Ave., Alimos, Tel. 210 98 55 795
Quick Bites: This place rocks to a Dionysian rhythm thanks to the young crowd and the owner's roots in Ikaria. The weekends buzz with party atmosphere and live Greek music.
Zefkin
A down and dirty, fun, very local Greek place where tourists can see firsthand how Greeks have fun, on weeknights, but especially on weekends and at Sunday lunch.
Where do a carload full of nostalgic islanders head when one of the clan is leaving to go back to New York for the winter? In the case of a family of Ikarians, only one place in Athens would be appropriate for a family farewell on a wintry Sunday afternoon. Zefkin.
The menu promises: fagopoti, glenti, parea, kaloperasi, and that’s exactly what we got, in addition to a pretty wide range of well-executed mezedes, enough to keep Tsantiris’ wine flowing without worry. The chef-owner, Nikos Politis, just left his secure hotel job to invest more time in his young restaurant and also to work on opening a place in the tourisy town of Armenisti, on the island.
The place itself is extremely simple, with minimum décor, a few paintings depicting characteristic views of Gialiskari, and not much more. But the atmosphere is lively even mid week, when the customer base is not necessarily related to the island. The crowd is a mix of young and old.
Politis’ menu offers a wide range of mezedes, many classics and a fare amount of dishes with his own touch. His chef’s skills at the skillet are especially noticeable—everything we tried that was fried was light, crisp and very well executed.
The basics, like melitzanosalata, fava and tzatziki all have their little twists: a handful of walnuts goes into the eggplant sald; carrots and orange flavor the fava; carrots go into the tzatziki as well. The flogeres zefkin were a delicious combination of pumpkin (tamboura to islanders), spinach, leek, marathon and the island’s kopanisti. Kolokythakia come fried as “maridakia” after the way they’re cut, long and thin. The pan-fried feta is seasoned for tsipouro not wine—with olive paste and tomato. The tigania, an easy dish to make but a hard one to make well, to get the meat at just the right point of tenderness without overcooking it and all the while keeping the whole thing juicy, is here a simple, tasty, succulent dish made for bread dipping.
Not everything is Greek. We liked the chili shrimp tempura, with a spicy Asian sauce. The chicken tortillas got a little lost on me-there was a lot going on inside a small wrap filled, of course, with chicken, but also with feta, tomatoes and eggplants. Some of Zefkin’s dishes, such as mushrooms a la crème, hark back to another era and seem a little out of place, but from a quick look around the room I could see that people had ordered it. It’s a tough call for any chef to take things off the menu that sell! The biftekia with cream sauce, another one of those dishes that recall another era, were good!
Zefkin
Cuisine: Taverna and meze fare
Athens Area: Alimos, southern suburb
Decor: Simple, rustic
Wine list: Greek, house wine, Ikarian wine
Service: Friendly
Prices: 15-20 euro a person
Address: 46 Eleftherias Ave., Alimos, Tel. 210 98 55 795
Quick Bites: This place rocks to a Dionysian rhythm thanks to the young crowd and the owner's roots in Ikaria. The weekends buzz with party atmosphere and live Greek music.
Zefkin
A down and dirty, fun, very local Greek place where tourists can see firsthand how Greeks have fun, on weeknights, but especially on weekends and at Sunday lunch.
Where do a carload full of nostalgic islanders head when one of the clan is leaving to go back to New York for the winter? In the case of a family of Ikarians, only one place in Athens would be appropriate for a family farewell on a wintry Sunday afternoon. Zefkin.
The menu promises: fagopoti, glenti, parea, kaloperasi, and that’s exactly what we got, in addition to a pretty wide range of well-executed mezedes, enough to keep Tsantiris’ wine flowing without worry. The chef-owner, Nikos Politis, just left his secure hotel job to invest more time in his young restaurant and also to work on opening a place in the tourisy town of Armenisti, on the island.
The place itself is extremely simple, with minimum décor, a few paintings depicting characteristic views of Gialiskari, and not much more. But the atmosphere is lively even mid week, when the customer base is not necessarily related to the island. The crowd is a mix of young and old.
Politis’ menu offers a wide range of mezedes, many classics and a fare amount of dishes with his own touch. His chef’s skills at the skillet are especially noticeable—everything we tried that was fried was light, crisp and very well executed.
The basics, like melitzanosalata, fava and tzatziki all have their little twists: a handful of walnuts goes into the eggplant sald; carrots and orange flavor the fava; carrots go into the tzatziki as well. The flogeres zefkin were a delicious combination of pumpkin (tamboura to islanders), spinach, leek, marathon and the island’s kopanisti. Kolokythakia come fried as “maridakia” after the way they’re cut, long and thin. The pan-fried feta is seasoned for tsipouro not wine—with olive paste and tomato. The tigania, an easy dish to make but a hard one to make well, to get the meat at just the right point of tenderness without overcooking it and all the while keeping the whole thing juicy, is here a simple, tasty, succulent dish made for bread dipping.
Not everything is Greek. We liked the chili shrimp tempura, with a spicy Asian sauce. The chicken tortillas got a little lost on me-there was a lot going on inside a small wrap filled, of course, with chicken, but also with feta, tomatoes and eggplants. Some of Zefkin’s dishes, such as mushrooms a la crème, hark back to another era and seem a little out of place, but from a quick look around the room I could see that people had ordered it. It’s a tough call for any chef to take things off the menu that sell! The biftekia with cream sauce, another one of those dishes that recall another era, were good!
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