Varoulko

Varoulko

Cuisine: Lazarou's very personal fish, seafood and contemporary Greek cuisine, masterfully prepared
Athens Area: centre, between Omonia square and Gazi
Decor: stately, refined, discreet, roof garden, great view especially under the full moon in the summer
Service: excellent
Wine List: very good
Prices: +75 euro per person, a treat for most but worth it
Address: 80, Peiraiws Ave., tel. 210 5228400

The roof garden had just opened, the moon was full and luminous, like the color of fresh avgotaraho, and the chef decked out in cherry red was in top form: Varoulko.

I had not been to Lefteris’ Lazarou’s Michelin starred landmark in a long time, setting my sights in these hard times on lesser places with lesser tabs and—because you get what you pay for in life—lesser food. It was great to see the chef, whose career I’ve tasted for the better part of 16 years now, longer than most, not as long as some colleagues who remember his humble start as a fish taverniari on a back street in Piraeus. The food, simply put, was great. For as long as I’ve known him, Lazarou has always been a chef whose signature is unique, removed from the caprices of fashion, and yet who from time to time weaves in the hottest trends. When he was in his meat phase when steak houses were sprouting like mushrooms he gave us refined patsa and other unusual carnivorous pleasures. He resisted for a long time the whole craze with spherification, Spanish chef Ferran Adria’s techniques for turning almost anything into quivering, gelatinous spheres. He resisted foaming. It was a refreshing stance that differentiated him from the crowd. Now, he’s embraced these things, but the sensuous brushstrokes that have always given his food that indescribable, dreamy, sating “mmmmm” factor are still alive and well.

Our meal started with an egg. It arrived upright in a holder, in the shell, sitting on a whisker-like bed of hay. The egg was perfect: a mixture of creamy zabagion in the shell, topped with avgotaraho and golden caviar. What I loved most was the ease with which the chef could present something so sumptuous, so simply. A little sprig of fresh oregano was meant to be swallowed at the end. I rushed and ate it first, thereby missing the chef’s intentions. But I never liked the idea of being told how to eat something anyway. It makes the whole experience too artificial and self-conscious.

Next came his signature marinated lavraki (sea bass), this time in a form different from past interpretations. The fish was coiled roselike in two swirls on the plate, accompanied by a salad of radishes, tiny shitake mushrooms, yogurt ice cream and squid ink dust. Complex as this all sounds, the dish was very refreshing and relatively easy to piece together on a fork. The squid dust was more decorative than flavor-enhancing. Two small beggar’s purses arrived next, the first filled with vegetables and olive specks the second with roasted vegetables and langoustine nuggets and served over a smooth feta-tarragon sauce. These were lovely. The phyllo was perfectly cooked and crisp, despite the moisture inside each filling, the feta-tarragon combo in the second beggar’s purse was soothing and worked to balance the little bursts of robust olive flavor.

The meal continued: A piece of John Dory fish (Christopsaro) came served with sun-dried and fresh tomato sauce and tiny vegetable pearls. The chef, wizardly, served this with a beef-stock based sauce, which worked very well but left me wondering if something lighter might make the dish even finer. Next came an octopus tentacle the color of royal robes (porphyro), perfectly cooked and set upon a creamy bed of almond paste. It was such an unusual combination made airy by an ethereal mound of fava foam. The flavor of fava was, at best, very discreet but the dish itself was both beautiful to look at and delicious to eat. But by all accounts, the piece de resistance was Lefteri at his best: delicious soul food in the form of kritharaki and karavides sweetened with what tasted to me like Moschato wine. It’s a variation on a theme he’s played with for a few years now. The dish was beautifully presented and hit that umami spot. We really did all close our eyes and say “mmmmm.”

P.S. Desserts: There isn’t enough space here to detail them. Suffice it to say that we had a little competition over who was going to get the last bit of milk chocolate ice cream and the last mandarin sphere on a dish that was a culinary ode to that humble fruit.