Piato

25/9/2008

Piato
Category: Casual Greek/A 20 minute taxi ride from downtown to one of the city’s better suburbs
Atmosphere contemporary, pleasant
Service good
Menu casual greek contemporary cooking
Wine list small but variedPrices 25-30 euro a person
Address: 8 Parashou str., Halandri, Tel. 210-68.00.058


This is a casual place that is worth the trek only if you happen to already be nearby. If you’re staying anywhere between Alexandras and Maroussi in the northern parts of Athens, then by all means try it and savor a simple, casual night out with friends.


It’s pretty good when you get together with three girlfriends on a Friday night, and the table at which you’re seated just happens to be literally with arm’s reach next to a fishbowl size jar filled with spiced liqueur. I left Piato happy…

I would have left pretty happy even without six of those little shot glasses at the end. This friendly, accessible restaurant on a side street in the heart of Halandri serves up exactly what’s right for the times: casual food in a casual setting at prices most people can afford. The owner comes to the task of bringing good stuff for reasonable prices from his years at another popular, but now defunct, restaurant, Asklipiou Gonia.

Piato’s menu is filled with familiar choices, but whatever we tried had its own flair and personality. Cheese is important on the menu and offerings include: stamnagkathi with katiki Domokou, a great combination; fresh myzithra with honey and pepper; kaskavali with sweet and sour figs; roasted feta with boukovo; anthotiropitakia; smoked cheese pitakia, mastelo Chiou on the grill; Saganaki and various vegetable pies where cheese is an ingredient in the filling. We tried the eggplant soufflé, served in a slice, which was very salty. The Russian salad was light and really homemade. We loved it! The shrimp and ginger wrapped in kataifi is a little démodé but good. The risotto with parmesan and thyme was surprisingly light, simple and pretty good. The pitakia kaisarias were more than competently made.

That all took about three hours to consume, which has nothing to do with the quality of the service, which is friendly and fast, but with the depth of conversation when three um, 50-something chicks congregate at a table! A few bottles of wine and many hundreds of calories later, the dessert course, a soft, comforting chocolate mosaico, was most welcome. And then there was that liqueur, and the ladle, and the proximity.

We liked Piato!