Gefseis me Onomasia Proelefsis

I hadn’t been up to Kifissia to catch up with chef Nena Ismirnoglou at Gefseis in close to two years. One recent visit on a Friday night made me angry at myself for not being hungry enough to savor more of this lovely restaurant’s delicious food. Nena, gourmet earth mother, takes the comforting flavors and dishes of Greek cuisine and brings them to an almost ethereal level. Hers is a female approach—to nourish, warm the soul, and provide delicious flavors in every dish; what a great welcome for the intellectual approach to Greek food that took over this city for a while.

This chef loves chips. And she made us love her versions of high-end beet chips (served beautifully with a silky dollop of Santorini fava) and classic potato chips, served artfully over a mound of grilled calamari strips and smoky eggplant cream. The beets retained a surprising flavor and the fava (split pea purée), garnished with volvous (bulbs) and roasted olives, was delicious. I loved the contrast between the chewy but tender calamari and the thin crisp potato chips in the second dish.

The winter cabbage salad at Gefseis brings an otherwise pedestrian cold-weather dish to new heights. Shredded cabbage and celery root are tossed with soft bits of the sweetest red pumpkin and countered with the subtle sharpness of green olive-bergamot confit. There is a pinch of boukovo (hot pepper flakes) somewhere in the dressing that magically holds the whole thing together. It’s one of the nicest salads I’ve sampled in a while, not too wet, perfectly balanced, pleasantly acidic.

We had a warming fish soup, a touch sharp with acid, but filled with chunks of cooked langoustine. The soup is tomato-based and is an elegant rendition of the classic Greek island fish soup.

So far so good. Light, healthy fare. Then came the peinirli (dough boat). I’ve never met a peinirli I didn’t like, but one that is mignon, dripping with butter, billowing with melted feta, and dotted with avgotaraho (botargo) is just impossible to resist. I loved it.

My favorite dish was the one I almost didn’t have room to eat, a perfectly prepared seared tuna in mavrodafni sauce. I wish I had had the stamina and space to savor a few other of Gefseis specialties, such as the turkey “like stifado” and the politico pilafi that accompanies Nena’s juicy keftedes (meatballs). The goat cooked in bitter orange sauce with mashed-potato galaktoboureko sounds like something to order next time, too!!

Cuisine: New Greek classics by Nena Ismirnoglou

Athens Area: Northern suburbs

Decor-Atmosphere: Civilized and pleasant. A great old house filled with tasteful antiques that I could live in forever

Service: Very good

Wine List: Very good

Prices: 45-60 euro a person

Address: 317 Kifissias ave., Kifissia

Tel.: 210-8001402

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Vardis

It’s not every day I splurge on a meal at Vardis, one of several Michelin-starred restaurants in Athens, but I did a few nights ago with friends. I had been wanting to try the cooking of the young chef Asterios Koustoudis for a while, having heard lots and even written some about him.

On a Wednesday night in this nervous, tired pre-election town, Vardis was pretty quiet. Nine of us in total occupied the stately dining room. Our meal started with a glass of champagne and a plate of small amuses-bouche that included a chick pea “button,” a small, crisp, frilly tyropita (cheese pie), and a fish tidbit that seemed to me like a tiny take on the classic psari magioneza (fish with mayonnaise) that once probably ruled dining rooms in the nearby vicinity.

An offering from the kitchen arrived next: foamy but thick eggplant “soup,” with a dollop of yogurt. It was a tad too sour for my taste buds, but I am one known to add a pinch of sugar to most eggplant dishes, so the comment might be a purely personal one. We ordered a range of starters and main courses that covered fish, meat, and vegetables.

The eggplant, tomato, mozzarella tart was strange to me and less refined than I expected: shaped into a large mound, about the size of a hamburger, and looking a little spongy, covered with a layer of cheese. The pastry base was, indeed, not the crunchy kind promised in its description on the menu, but soggy and dense. It didn’t work for me. I tried the homemade pasta with calamari and chutney made with salami from Lefkada. The combination intrigued me and it actually worked, but again the plate was more rustic in its appearance than I expected. It was not a beautiful dish. The interpretation of a Horiatiki salata (Greek village salad) was much prettier and tasty.

We ordered two fish and one meat main course. My fish came out lukewarm: a good sized sfyrida (grouper) nicely presented with a spoonful of roasted eggplant purée and a very tasty tomato confit. I just wish it had been hot! The grilled fillet of sole with avgotaraho (botargo) and vegetables was not the winner we had hoped, a little bland but artfully grilled, no easy feat I suppose for such a delicate fish. The gourounopoulo (piglet), a hefty portion for a restaurant of this caliber, with bulbous caramelized onions, was tasty.

I was surprised by a few other things on the menu, for example, the mention of “agourelaio” (early-harveste olive oil) in at least one dish. How can that be—it was late September! If it’s last year’s it’s not agouro (immature) any more, but, well, “aged.” Ditto on a few other ingredients, such as zucchini blossoms, that belong on an early-summer menu. Maybe I am nitpicking, and I don’t want to because the chef is so simpatico and so earnest and devoted and serious and humble, all things that don’t make me feel good about writing what I feel!

Desserts: these were good, especially the Mastiha ice cream with ginger over the thinnest, crispest layer of kantaifi pastry. I loved the super bitter summer chocolate dessert, despite its very wintry richness. The lemon sorbet and the orange sorbet with honey were delicious. The lemon cream more staid.

Cuisine: Refined Greco-Mediterranean that the Michelin man likes!
Athens Area: Northern suburbs, Kifissia
Decor-Atmosphere: Stately, refined, very quiet
Service: Very good
Wine List: Very good
Prices: très cher! 60 to 70 a person sans vin (wine)
Address: 66, Diligianni str., Pentelikon Hotel, Kefalari, Kifissia, tel. 2106230650-6 

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Selene

It’s a sad fact that residents of Santorini have done more to destroy the island than earthquakes ever could and sadder still that they continue to rip the soul out of this magical place by erecting ever more spectacularly ugly buildings. Get rid of the tour buses that choke local roads, scale things down to the island’s natural pace, and take a lesson from one of the few local business people who have managed to retain both a sense of exquisite taste and refinement for more than two decades now: long-time restaurateur Yiorgos Hatziyanakis, whose 25-year-old Selene is better than ever.

Hatziyanakis is one of Greece’s first professional “locavores,”—someone who sought out the island’s foods and food products long before it was fashionable to do so and with those simple foods he forged a gourmet restaurant that remains one of this country’s gastronomic destinations. This year he brought in one of Greece’s most talented young chefs, Constantina Faklari, who seems, in just a short time, to have understood the pared down essence of this island and manages to manifest it in her cooking. In a two day visit, during which time we sampled almost everything on the menu, one dish was better than the next.

Selene is blessed with a stellar view of the Caldera, sunsets to croon over, and cocktails to set the mood for things to come. I loved the pepper-studded Tselepos champagne (by a respected producer in Mantineia, Peloponnese), but was even more impressed with the soumada-vodka-mint-crushed ice creation of longtime hostess Yeorgia. It was delicious.

Our meal began with a selection of starters. The sea urchin and grilled artichoke was a favorite. The artichokes, crunchy as a pumice stone, paired beautifully with the unctuous texture of the sea urchin. Both were tempered by a smooth as silk fava cream and an airy lemon foam. The octopus carpaccio, shaped like a mound over smoky eggplant puree, was another sensuous pleasure, a marriage of taste and texture that I could have savored all night. Faklari marries the common with the eclectic, like her raw zucchini “spaghetti” with botargo jelly, an exercise in reining in the natural unctuousness of the botargo with nature’s most water-filled vegetable. The cold tomato soup with ice cream made of Ios goat’s milk is superb—the chef likes ice creams of all sorts and plays with them artfully. We tried two dishes that were remakes of stuff she was doing at Urban, her last post in crowded downtown Athens: a take on shrimp Saganaki with feta panacotta and a giant bean and cured fish salad. The shrimp Saganaki was presented in an almost painterly way and was a masterful approach to this often stodgy dish, but the giant beans with home-cured lakerda (salted tunny) were Greek food at its best: minimal, earthy, direct. A fava tart has been on Selene’s menu for a long time, but was definitely rougher around the edges before the chef’s intervention. Now it’s playful but classy, with a sunnyside up egg baked into the golden tart. She marries it with a succulent smoked quail.

Those, dear readers were the starters! Main courses that we sampled included a simple but elegant briam baked in phyllo with xinomyzithra quenelles. The seafood ravioli, which comes as two separate pieces of large pasta between which are nestled finely diced summer vegetables, fennel and seafood, is luxurious but also simple. The monkfish and langoustine orzo is another simple, elegant dish that won us over. The cod—that was among my favorites. Crisply fried without a trace of oil and served with three painterly mounds of smoked eggplant and tomato sauce. The piglet, a slow-cooked tender as a baby’s bottom piece of meat comes with an intoxicating side of apple-vyssino (sour cherry) purée.

I could go on, but room won’t permit, so I’ll mention but one of the handful of desserts: a milk chocolate Semifreddo wrapped in sweet white eggplant preserves and served with a fantastic vanilla-arbaroriza (rose geranium) sauce. That dish speaks tomes for both Hatziyanaki’s and Faklari’s culinary aesthetics: respect local foods and make them shine, excel at the art of seasoning with Greek herbs, and stay grounded while flying high.

Cuisine: Greek cooking befitting the magic of this island
Area: Cyclades islands in the Aegean
Decor-Atmosphere: A jewel in every way
Service: Excellent
Wine List: Paean to local wines as well as to Greek wines
Prices: 70+ euro a person
Address: Fira, Santorini, tel. 22860 22249 

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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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Milos Athens

Some things get better with age. Milos is definitely one of them.
Thursday afternoon is not a propitious time for lunch in this city of night owls gearing up for the weekend’s food and drinks splurge. So, it was a surprise, to say the least, to see Milos Athens’ stunningly spare dining room filled nearly to the brim with what seemed to me like pretty loving and loyal customers. More than a few local stars, from glittering socialites with royalist leanings, to intellectual heavyweights to old family progeny filled more than a few seats. This is, obviously, the place to be between the hours of 2 and 5.

So be it. It’s the best deal in town, too. For a mere 20.08 euros, you dine like a king on a prix fixe lunch that includes one of two excellent salads (either classic tomato-onion-and feta “tis hyras” or a crisp, fresh endive and radicchio salad. A burger, a pretty generous piece of grilles salmon and almyrikia and a vegetable dish make up the three choices for a main course. A choice of two desserts ends what is, by all measures, a most satisfying, civilized meal.

Not being able to withstand the temptation, I ordered off the other, bigger, menu, too. I wanted to try the cabbage salad with orange pieces and bits of krassotyri Kos . It was a subtle, beautiful salad, a tad too salty, but I thought a great, light way to introduce one of the most pungent of Greece ’s regional cheeses. Other regional touches take the same elegant, subtle approach: the Evritania sausage served in yogurt sauce, the lakerda, the Kythera goat baked in a gastra.
Milos has always done the simplest foods best, by sticking to a tried and true formula that relies on great raw ingredients. That’s exactly what this elegant, light, delicious meal was all about.
The star of the afternoon was, by far, the delicate rosettes of a Japanese fish called aftokratoras, served raw and marinated in a light mix of olive oil, lime, salt and pepper.

My only regret is that I let so much time pass since this and my last visit.

Cuisine: Fish par excellence and a mean steak, too

Decor: Sleek, modern, gorgeous, a place to see and be seen, located in the Athens Hilton

Service: Excellent

Wine List: Excellent, Greek and International

Price: Prix Fix lunch and earlybird dinner at 20.09 euro per person, a la carte in the 50-80 euro range

Address: 46 Vas. Sofias str., Athens Hilton Hotel, Ilisia, Tel.: 2107281000

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Galazia Akti

I have to be motivated on a hot Saturday night to set out from the northern suburbs all the way to Lagonisi. Motivation came in the form of, what else, a restaurant. Not just any restaurant but a small, very chic, very expensive, very good restaurant whose seats and tables are sprayed by the sea and whose kitchen is manned by Thanassis Roussas, the talented sous chef who works closely with his well-established boss, Yiannis Baxevannis, whose signature is on the menu. The restaurant: Galazia Akti at the very exclusive Lagonissi Resort.

Galazia Akti is small, a minute jewel of white and Aegean blue enhanced by the lights artfully placed under the water right at the restaurant’s edge. The menu is well thought out, with an interesting, unusual selection of starters, salads and main courses. At this hotel, where prices range start in the mid hundreds of euros for a room and go north from there to five figures, the prices for a meal appeal to those with deep-sea sized pockets. Starters range from 20 to 37 euros, main courses from 30 to 55. The wines are pricey.

Baxevannis’ love affair with fresh herbs is everywhere in evidence on the menu. Basil, citronella, marjoram, arbaroriza and more grace many dishes with subtle, ethereal flavors and perfumy aromas. The chefs show a particular fondness and imagination in the salad selection: sea urchin salad with seaweed and crayfish veloute comes served in a glass where various temperatures and textures jump around playfully on the palate. It was delicious. I liked the play on traditional Aegean fish pichti, here made with sfyrida, salmon and eel, and served with a medley of xinolahano, apples and celery. The red mullet in an orange crust was a very fine and delicate plate, served with roasted eggplant and herbs. One odd thing in this dish: the fish didn’t have that characteristic “muddy” flavor that is the trademark of the red mullet. I loved the seafood giouvetsi main course, which is a gentrified version of this homey Greek dish, but here presented beautifully. The fish on a crust of tea with asparagus-basil puree didn’t work for me, even though it sounded fascinating. The asparagus was fibrous, which gave the puree an unpleasant texture. The grouper with artichokes a la polita is a classic take on a classic dish, well-prepared, with surprisingly good tasting chokes, that made me wonder if the chef buys them in season and freezes them himself.

All said, we did have a really good meal here, wining and dining under the moonlight, lulled by the gentle slap of water against the shore. If there are a few comments to be made, from this nitpicker’s perspective, they have to do less with the food and more with a few details that seemed overlooked. Translations into English on the menu were sloppy. Louiza, for example, isn’t citronella but lemon verbena in English; kavourma isn’t pastrami (it doesn’t translate), xinogalo isn’t sour milk, which sounds singularly unappetizing in English, but buttermilk, and xinomyzithra is a far better cheese than the cottage cheese it is translated as and that most English speaking natives associate with a horrible diet food sold in plastic containers. If the chefs can convince their hotel-keeper landlords to fix a few of the rickety tables and to provide slightly better directions to this lovely place once inside the labyrinthine hotel complex then Galazia Akti will just be better. It’s already very, very good.

Cuisine: New Greek cooking by Yiannis Baxevannis and his talented sous chef Thanassis Roussos

Area: Lagonissi, one hour south of Athens along the coast

Decor: Kissed by the Sea

Service: Very attentive

Wine List, very good, very expensive

Prices 100 + euro per person without wines

Address: Grand Resort Lagonissi, 40th km Leoforos Athinon-Souniou, Tel. 2291076000

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