La Cantina

I can’t think of the last time I spent a night in a Kolonaki restaurant where the most expensive dish on the menu was 15 euro. Signs of the times are pointing to a reshuffling of the restaurant order. This is surely the year that all things haute will deflate like a failed soufflé and most things cheap and chic will attract hipsters between the ages of 20 and 70 who know a good deal when they taste one.

La Cantina, on the upper level of the Lemos Center, is a perfect example of such a place. The restaurant specializes in pizza (which is pretty good, on a cracker like crust), pasta (we tried the casarecce with eggplant, tomato, pecorino, and basil—a little underseasoned believe it or not, but better than most), more than a handful of salads and a few iconic Italian desserts. The setting is simple. A bar on one side of the floor serves dinner, too, but on tres uncomfortable seats and small tables; the restaurant seating is fine, the décor amicable and Kolonaki-rustic, with garlands of sun-dried vegetables and cinnamon sticks dangling as if from the rafters of someone’s Tuscan larder. The service is slow.

Try the bufala pizza or any of the other 9 choices, including a classic margarita and a lovely pie topped with fresh arugula and anchovies. The arugula salad with gorgonzola dolce and walnuts is tasty but a little over dressed. We opted for a salami turco for dessert, otherwise known as kormos, which came dressed to kill in a generous dousing of confectioner’s sugar. It was very chocolaty and very good, nothing like the stuff I mix together in haste at my kids’ birthday parties!

La Cantina is casual, sexy, simple and cheap. A meal for two, with half a carafe of house wine cost us 43 euro.

Cuisine: Italian, specializes in pizza
Athens Area: Kolonaki, downtown Athens (metro Panepistimiou or Syntagma)
Decor-Atmosphere: simple setting, amicable and rustic
Service: slow
Wine list: ok
Prices: 20-30 euros
Address: 28-30, Alopekis str., Kolonaki, tel. 2107299133