Show Room

Going out with the girls is always fun, especially when the backdrop is Missoni. OK, we didn’t exactly go on a shopping spree for Italian designer sweaters but we did sit on Missoni-upholstered chairs and amidst Missoni striped walls and tile patterns at a fun, new place in Milioni, in Kolonaki. The place is appropriately called Show Room, because indeed that was what it once was: the Missoni boutique in Athens.

Although my aging ears tend to like places a little quieter, what I liked about Show Room is that it is comfortable with itself. The place fits in almost perfectly with its location. It’s a light-hearted, downtown jack-of-all-trades kind of eatery, with a mix of Mediterranean, Greek and (a few) Asian dishes, a smart approach to dining that emphasizes the casual and easygoing. The bar is a growing scene in this place and the cocktails are excellent (although, it did take a little while longer than we hoped for a whisky to arrive at the table). You can eat at the bar, too.

The menu is still being tweaked, from what owner Alexis Klee mentioned. For one, some things are coming off, among them the foie gras and the pasta with crab claws. I think that’s a good move, since Show Room seems to attract a young crowd a lot more interested in hanging out and nibbling on finger food over a drink than on serious gastronomic indulgences.

That said, what we did sample was more than competent. The truffle risotto was tasty, its texture right, the portion large enough for a handful of us young-at-heart hens to share. I liked the concept behind some of the starters: with one title, you get three different small tastes. For example, “Russia on Ice” is a medley of avgotaraho, caviar and smoked salmon served with a shot of frozen vodka. East West is a selection of slim pastry flutes filled with the soft, sour Cretan cheese, xinomyzithra, to be dipped in accompanying honey and sesame, a few skewers of pork satay, and chicken wings in spicy sauce. We tried the von Berg salad, with lentils, couscous, smoked salmon, and lettuce, which was hearty and tasty. We liked the foccacia sandwich with mozzarella, fresh and dried tomatoes and pesto. The black cod was good, even though it wasn’t…blackened. Instead what arrived was a very tender, well-cooked, large piece of cod fillet served with a lovely light sauce of cherry tomatoes and leeks.

After a few bottles of Avantis Syrah, we were ready for the dessert: wedges of Valhrona brownies that were very good, chewy and chocolaty but with constraint.

Show Room is right on in terms of what this place is all about. It’s a hip, downtown bar-restaurant with a bustling all-day coffee and snack business. The recipe seems made for success, even in these crisis-ridden times.

Cuisine: Mediterranean fun food
Athens Area: downtown, Kolonaki, near Syntagma
Decor: Missoni-style--it used to be a Missoni boutique
Atmosphere: hip, fashionable, with a happening bar scene
Service: good but still learning
Wine List: good. an excellent array of cocktails
Prices: 30-50 euro a person for full dinner; snacking is less
Address: Milioni & Irakleitou str., Kolonaki, tel. 2103646460 

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Taverna

I like going to simple restaurants on Sunday afternoon, kids in tow, friends at the table, noise, a little wine and then, once sated to the gills, home to dose with the newspaper. It’s a ritual many of us share every weekend. That’s exactly what we did at Taverna, this sleek, modern new, well, taverna, in Neo Psychiko. The little kids ran around the back, the big kids huddled together in typical teenage collusion, and the adults indulged in wine and simple competent food that doesn’t aim either to reinvent the wheel or to break the bank despite its chi-chi address.

Taverna is modern, with lots of glass, wood, and metal, a contemporary look that belies the simplicity and hominess of the cuisine. Starters include classics like feta with a sesame crust, fava (yellow split peas purée), Keftedes (meat balls), melitzanosalata (eggplant salad). The melitzanosalata was good and smokey with bits of vegetables inside. We liked the soutzoukakia (fried oblong meat patties with tomato sauce) and the eggplant with manouri cheese. The hortopita (greens pie) was only OK, but I have long felt that pita (pie) should remain in the realm of the home kitchen, since so few restaurants manage to do it well.

I liked the fact that there are always a few well executed ladera (stews cooked with olive oil) on the menu, such as arakas (green peas) and briam (baked vegetable medley). The grill is a special section with 6 offerings, among which we sampled the bifteki (beef burger) and the bifteki galopoulas (turkey burger). Both were tasty. The regular bifteki is large and a little on the dry side but surprisingly the turkey bifteki was moist and redolent with the aroma of coarsely chopped onions.

Amidst a whole row of cooked meat dishes such as beef yiouvetsi (orzo in the oven), chicken with kasseri cheese and capers (pretty good), and fricassée, someone must have gotten a creative urge expressed in a plate of spaghetti with cooked spinach and katiki Domokou cheese. We liked the klephtico (meat baked in parchment paper) and the French fries, too.

Taverna is a simple, neighborhood restaurant that welcomes kids on Sunday afternoons, offers competent service, competitive prices and more than decent food. We liked it.

Cuisine: classic Greek taverna fare, traditional dishes

Athens Area: northern suburbs
Atmosphere: sleek and modern
Service: friendly

Wine List: small but right for this place

Prices: 20-25 euro a person

Address: 7, Perikleous str., Neo Psychiko, tel. 210 6716803 

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Small Talk

Small Talk

One thing we restaurant reviewers savor is a meal in a place with a menu that’s actually worth reviewing. Ironic as that might sound, in Athens, a city where so many eating establishments serve forth pre-fab food or simple, standard taverna fare, it’s an issue.

Small Talk, located right across from the Polis parking area and the National Research Foundation is definitely worth, well, talking about. Sotiris Evaggelou, the young chef here, puts forth food with flair and elegance. Not everything we sampled hit the high notes, but everything was interesting enough to…talk about.

The design is sleek: Wall murals display spa-like, life-enhancing messages. The hanging light fixtures illuminate hanging olive branches. The neutral colors are soothing. The noise level is acceptable to these aging ears.

The same sleek, Mediterranean aesthetics permeate the menu. I expected more out of the beef cheeks (magoula) hounkiar. The cheeks themselves, small, very tender bits of gelatin-rich, boneless meat, were delicious. The eggplant cream was bland though, lacking depth and smokiness and the round, buttery mouthfeel that comes from mixing the roasted eggplants with a proper béchamel. The plate could have used some color. We loved the roasted beet cubes with the lightest of aioli sauces. The beets were perfectly cooked and earthy. The aioli, a kind of Frenched up skordalia made with potato, was a tad on the gummy side but tasty. The chick pea-avgotaraho duet was an elegant, high-class ode to the amazing flexibility of the Mediterranean’s oldest legume. I liked the fact that the chef doesn’t get stingy with the avgotaraho (botargo), which is cut into thick squares and portioned generously. The dish could have used some olive oil or stock to make it even more luscious and the chick peas could have been a little less al dente. But overall it was very good. Other dishes that intrigued me but that I didn’t try: cauliflower pureée with clams and shrimp and the Santorini fava with squid.

We tried a main course fish, the tsipoura (gilt head bream) with stamnangathi (spiny chicory) fricassée. This is a simple, well-executed dish, not extravagant, not a showcase for fanciful techniques or flavor marriages. It was very good. The farfalles with sausage and calamari recalls similar combinations in Spanish paella, but here the dish was flat. It lacked counterpoint and interesting flavor-texture playfulness.

Dessert: we ordered one dark, one white chocolate dish. The dark chocolate soufflé came with a ball of chocolate ice cream and berry compote. It was more than competent. The white chocolate cream with orange and citrus sauce was very, very sweet.

Small Talk is a place worth keeping an eye on. The food is more than good, the location prime, and the prices set accordingly (it’s not cheap).

Cuisine: Modern Greek and Mediterranean fare

Athens Area: not far from Syntagma, near Panathinaiko Stadium
Atmosphere: contemporary, sleek

Service: slow starting but competent

Wine List: well balanced and reasonably priced, with plenty in the 20 euro range

Prices: 50-70 euro a person
Address: 2, Naiadon str. & Antinoros str., Pagkrati, tel. 210-7222607

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Politika kai Apla

Sometimes you pass a place a hundred times and somewhere in the back of your mind you wonder what it is. That’s more or less how I felt when, trying to find “Politika kai Apla” I realized it was literally almost up the street from me. This five-month old restaurant sits on the corner of a busy street in Halandri. Ironically, it’s one of three restaurants serving eastern cuisine within a two block radius. (The other two are O Kipos tis Edem and Ex Anatolis, which happens to belong to the same owner.)

Politika kai Apla doesn’t have any of the cliché design elements most Middle Eastern and Anatolian restaurants share. In fact, the opposite is true. Instead of the fun kitch gaudiness that describes most restaurants in the category, Politika kai Apla is downright bland. All beige and modern, with a few interesting elements, such as the lanky, curved, arm-like chandeliers and the bathroom with its shelf of colognes and other potential necessities, the room is totally nondescript.

The menu (which, by the way, is very hard to read) has a wide selection of all sorts of things for vegetable lovers, cheese lovers, meat or fish lovers. Not everything we tried was stellar. The mushrooms islik, stuffed with a spicy, pleasant mixture, were flavorful, but a little wet. The roasted eggplant salad was not babaganoush, but a more Greek rendition, smokey and without tahini. We sampled a thin pita with ground up soutzouki, which sounded better than it actually was. It was a little dry and tough to eat. The Saganaki Anatolis, is heavy with cheese and soutzouki slices. Heart-attack food!

We tried two main courses, the yiaourtlou and the Bulgur Kebab. The yiaourtlou is not up there with the greats, that’s for sure. The yogurt was already congealed when it came out and the meat was not so tender. The bulgur kebab, in which bulgur is mixed into the ground meat, was a little more interesting, served up with tomatoes and thinly sliced onions.

Politika kai Apla seems to have a steady clientele, despite the owners’ nearby restaurant and the close competition up the road. I have eaten better politiki cooking in many other places around Athens. Here, despite the terseness of the space, the food was heavy-handed.

Cuisine: 'Politiki', eastern fare
Athens Area: northern suburbs
Atmosphere: modern, neutral
Service: friendly Wine List: ok
Prices: 20-30 euro a person
Address: corner of I. Paleologou str. & 2, Valaoritou str., Halandri, tel. 2106856466 

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Psomi kai Alati

Something is happening in Halandri! Right there along the pedestrian road just behind the Church, in the center of Halandri, a row of restaurants has opened over the course of the last year or two, packed to the brim with eager diners looking for good food at reasonable prices. Bread and Salt (Psomi kai Alati) is the newest addition to the crowd, and, arguably, the best. Chef Yianis Loukakos takes the classics and reworks them with a sensitive eye to the demands of the times, not too much fanfare but lots of good flavor. Since this review was first written, Loukakos has become a celebrity thanks to his participation on Master Chef. 

The décor is “taverneau”—my new word for the new wave of updated tavernas designed to look like modern renditions of the bakaliko (grocery-store) taverna of yore. Light and airy, with a country look in the middle of an urban setting, Psomi kai Alati is on to something. The name implies the basics, bread and salt, the very foundations of Greek cuisine, and that’s more or less what one finds here, but with a twist.

There are salads, “voutimata”, (nibbles) small mezedes, big mezedes, kalamakia, merides, side dishes and sweets—in other words a menu that stands out because it’s organized a little differently.

We tried a bunch of different things, right down to the beef liver, as a main course, finished with balsamic and garnished with caramelized onions. It was pretty good (for liver!). I liked the beet salad with fresh green beans, pistachios, and basil because it was both Greek but fresh in its approach. A simple dish with something new to say on the taverna beet-salad idea. The chick peas with sun dried tomatoes and feta were good but a little on the heavy side. We liked the roasted eggplants, zucchini and peppers with basil and balsamic. The dressing was made for bread dipping and the vegetables roasted to that sweet caramelized point. The fava with fried capers and caramelized onions was also very good, another simple dish well-prepared, sure of itself. The pita-pitsa with graviera, tomatoes and apaki (Cretan cured pork) was tasty—little pitas stuffed with the above, well-prepared and easy. One thing caught our attention—the zymarodolmades, which were not exactly what we thought they would be. For one, they didn’t look like dolmades, they were fried squares of stuffed dough, not cylinders. The salmon, spinach and feta filling got a little lost around all that dough, too. We devoured the next dish, though, a cost-conscious restaurant owner’s dream: potato skins (otherwise destined for the waste bin) cooked “tavas” style, and garnished with cumin and onions. They were crisp and irresistible. The cheese croquettes with cumin-orange sauce were also a nice change from the norm, a simple twist on an overplayed taverna dish that worked very well. Our favorite by far though were the real dolmades, stuffed with bulgur and tomato and their cousin on the menu, the bulgur salad with the flavor of summer gemista (with zucchini, peppers, grilled tomatoes, feta and lots of mint). Both were common dishes with uncommon touches that made them stand out.

The sweets are not as strong here. The glifitzouri of milk chocolate with caramel sauce is hard to eat and very rich. The panakota with berries and crumbled biscuits had none of the finesse or fun of the mezedes. These still need work.

Over all, though, Psomi kai Alati is a place I would go back to, mainly for the food.

Cuisine: Greek classics with a smart twist
Athens Area: northern suburbs Atmosphere: modern rendition of the bakaliko (grocery of old)-cum-taverna
Service: good Wine List: competent Prices: 35-40 euro a person Address: 8, Eleftheroton Square, Halandri 

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Prunier

Prunier is run by a mother-son team. The son cooks and the mother runs the front of the house, exuding a certain warmth and care that’s hard to find in larger restaurants, or in any restaurant these days for that matter. The service was very good.

So was the food. Seeing a menu where escargots a la Bourgignonne and frogs legs are still served made me nostalgic for the most recent trip I took to Paris two years ago with my lovely daughter, who actually did try a snail and a princely sauteed frog leg. We didn’t at Prunier last week, but there was plenty more that we did.

I had to slurp a hot spoonful of classic French onion soup, with its deep, earthy flavor and irresistible melted gruyere. It made me think of the charms of onions so much that it inspired today’s recipe piece, too. The soup was a tiny bit on the salty side but delicious. The salmon tartar was also very well executed. It came with a spicy remoulade and small bits of toast. A green salad was generous and properly dressed, with a variety of fresh seasonal salad greens and a balanced sauce.

One of us had the monkfish, which was simply but perfectly grilled (a little over cooked) and served with an equally simple but just right combination of poached carrots, broccoli, zucchini and cauliflower. There was a fillet to be sampled, which was tender and served forth with a classic Bearnaise and a chicken “teriyaki,” as a nod to contemporary tastes. It was good. But the finale was my plate: steak Tartare, which I usually dare not eat anymore because raw meat is, well, questionable. It was delicious, just spicy enough, every spoonful a blend of sharp spice and soft comfort.

Dessert came: candied quince with ice cream, which was really good—a combination of sauteed quince and preserved quince over vanilla ice cream, and a classic, well-made panacotta with chocolate sauce.

It was nice to be in a setting so civilized and low-profile, where the service is attentive, the food classic and steady, and prices a little on the expensive side, at around 60 euro each (we did go through three bottles of wine). When you consider that so many restaurants that serve forth pre-made schlock will run you about 40-45 euro a person, Prunier with all its finesse seems almost like a bargain.

Cuisine: traditional French fare
Athens Area: downtown, Kolonaki, near Syntagma 

Atmosphere: civilized, cozy, low-profile

Service: attentive

Wine list: very good range

Prices: 45-60 euro a person

Address: 63, Ipsilantou str., Kolonaki, tel. 2107227379 

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Enoteca

Enoteca

Cuisine: Italian and Mediterranean classics meant to go with the wines
Athens Area: northern suburbs
Decor: cozy, elegant, with antiques and wine paraphernalia, dining area divided in small rooms, reminiscent of Italy
Service: friendly and discreet
Wine List: formidable with choices for every taste and budget
Prices: 35 euro and up, really depending on what you drink
Address: 113, Pendelis Ave., Halandri, tel. 210-6890238

Is the test of success the fast, easy glamour that comes with popular fly-by-night places, or is it the standard bearers that hold up in good times and bad, that are consistent even if a little predictable? I vote for the second as a measure of success, knowing full well that restaurants that manage to stay in business with a steady clientele and a roster of fans that have grown over the years like good friends are a rare breed. Enoteca is definitely in this second category.

The space is cozy and intimate, with antiques and wine paraphernalia everywhere. Dining takes place in several small rooms, some of which are reserved for private parties. The whole place seems like it belongs not in the foothills of Pendeli but in the foothills of Piemonte. In fact, Kostas Touloumtzis did own a restaurant in northern Italy for 15 years before settling back here. He first opened Enoteca in another nearby location in 1998.

It had been a few years since my last visit and I was relieved to see that Kostas Touloumtzis, one of the major figures in the Greek wine world over the last 15 years (and president of the Sommelier’s Association), has maintained his high standards and delicious, simple cuisine. Most menu items were as I had remembered them: a terrine of eggplant and mozzarella was homey, tasty, and well-presented, without fanfare but with a certain elegance. Dishes like the tagliata of duck (and one of beef, too) are easy fare for meatlovers. The pasta and risotto are some of the best around: gnocchi with gorgonzola, a classic Italian dish, is prepared simply and is very good. It might be a little old fashioned, but it still hits a certain place in this gastronomic heart! Ditto on the risotto with porcini and singlino Manis and the pasta with porcini and sausage. We had a lovely meal here, drank a Papaioannou Pinot Noir and enjoyed the quiet, civilized, warm atmosphere of this all time classic spot in Halandri.

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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.

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Qor

Qor

Cuisine: very good sushi and more from Japan
Athens Area: northern suburbs, Kifissia
Decor: Modern, big, black and brick interior, thumping with music
Service: Friendly and accomodating
Wine List: Good
Prices: 45-55 euro a person with limited alcohol
Address: Ag. Tryfonos & Omirou 18, Kifissia, Tel. 210-8011117

What a heart-warming sight: A full restaurant (restaurant, not taverna) on a Wednesday night, big, noisy, modern, thumping with music, six-inch Kifissia heels, and the heartbeats of more than a few males sitting across from more than a few females in low-cut shirts. For a second it felt like the 1990s all over again, when warehouse-size spaces were transformed into expensive eateries, when the dice rolled high and everyone drove a brand new Cherokee Jeep. But it isn’t the ‘90s all over again and it won’t be any time soon. Are the northern suburbs immune to crisis? QOR, the latest sushi restaurant, seems to go against the tide, with encouraging success.

QOR is big, with a black and brick interior, shiny orange banquettes against the walls, a semi-open kitchen and a wall behind the bar filled to the brim with Scandinavian water in those tube-like designer bottles. Another wall houses bottles like a wine cellar might, except that they are stacked asymmetrically, making me wonder if the idea, which I like, is conceptual art or actually has some practical application. Our waitress was very friendly and accommodating and polite, and, she actually knew the menu, describing dishes in commendable detail. Could it be that people actually come to QOR not to see and be seen (there’s a lot of that, too, here), but because the service is pretty good, the sushi some of the best in town, and the place lively and fun?

It takes courage to open a sushi bar these days, as the fad wanes somewhat and the craze—so ‘90s “we want it all” is more or less over. I can honestly say –I haven’t been to Nobu yet—that I probably haven’t had fresher fish and better carved sushi anywhere in Athens. There is also a certain originality to many of the choices. QOR does market itself as a “fusion” restaurant—again, soooooo ‘90s, but that it isn’t. This is Japanese food in full, with flair and elegance and the prices to match, expensive but not outrageously so, given the high food cost of sea creatures these days.

The menu is very big: starters, rolls big, medium, and small, gunkani (boat-shaped sushi), temaki (hand rolls), cirashi (bowls of rice and sushi), carpaccio (therein lay the fusion?), sashimi, nigiri, noodles, soups, rice dishes, salads, tempura and a wide selection of grilled dishes make it hard to decide what to order. We settled on the chef’s special sushi-sashimi platter, 18 pieces, 28 euro. The fish was very fresh and the sashimi—raw fish without rice—was beautifully cut. But the selection was not so “special”—the usual array of salmon, tuna, lavraki (sea bass), and a few rolls. We loved the spicy tuna gunkani, a boat-shaped seaweed-wrapped, bite-sized piece filled with chopped tuna in a spicy dressing. I also really liked the dragon roll, although we paid dearly for it at 24 euro: rice on the outside, dotted with tiny fish eggs and stuffed with eel and avocado. The whole presentation was artful and the rolls delicious. The equally expensive tiger rolls, also made of an outer layer of rice, but filled with shrimp tempura and brik, were less successful because the fried shrimp had an oily tang to it that distracted from what should have been crystal clear tastes. There is certainly a lot to choose from at QOR, even for meat lovers. Although the price tag—50 euro each, about 17 euro of which was the combined price of a glass of pino grigio and a Jack Daniels, was not exactly cheap, in lesser places I’ve spent the same. The decibel level is a little too loud for me, but the overall experience was more than pleasant.

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