$135 for the veggie menu (and it's not even in Paris)...Is this Europe's most expensive new restaurant?
But traveller fear not, the "omnivore" menu costs even more!
In America, Stavros Niarchos is known mainly for a thin connection to failed pop star Paris Hilton: the grandson of the late Greek shipping tycoon (you know, not Onassis, the other one) once famously dated the baby-voiced sex tapist. But in Greece, the Niarchos family is widely known as a cultural benefactor, big time, having donated their funds to more stuff than is possible to keep track of, but including the mammoth
namesake cultural center in the south of Athens. Our most recent visit to the SNFCC was prior to the pandemic, and as impressed as we were by the Renzo Piano-designed edifice—even though Piano peaked with the Centre Pompidou—the food offerings left us a bit underwhelmed. A return visit would show just how things have changed.
On the new menu, unapologetic elitist drift! In the form of the strange trio of menu offerings at the unfortunately named Delta restaurant. Yes, at this moment in time, Delta is also an unfortunately named airline, but no one at the SNFCC seems to have gotten the memo. Why, for that matter, Greece made no protest when the WHO decided to start naming virus mutations after Greek letters is just beyond comprehension—after all the scourge started in China, why not use Chinese letters? Wouldn’t want to offend those Commies now…Anyway, a restaurant named Delta during a plague known as Delta and featuring a menu of 17 dishes consisting of vegetables that clocks in at 115€, or roughly $135. Yeah, one hundred and thirty-five dollars. And this place isn’t even in Mykonos, but the menu does include coffee and mineral water! Mmm. So. Who exactly is this menu for? If you identify as an “omnivore” diner then your I-must-impress-my-neighbors prayers are also answered:
…just 135€ for 17 dishes! Well that’s not only too expensive, it’s too many dishes and as anyone can tell you, 17 is not a very lucky number in Greece. Even 13 is luckier! If you add the included mineral water and coffee that’s 19 items, but beautiful people like Paris Hilton and me can’t keep track of numbers much higher than ten. Deal with it!
Look, when not doing this column my name has appeared in some pretty fancy publications, from the now discredited Forbes (sadly Chinese-owned and ridiculously Great pay-Walled now, but I’ve pulled all my content from that site) to mags for folks who only use American Express Platinum and Titanium cards and proudly—but let it be said, even one-percenters know the value of a good gyro. It’s also gastronomy. And in Greece, you can get a pretty damn good one for under four bucks. Yes, four bucks!
Salt Bae, that unctuous Turk, has been rightly slammed for charging £630 for a steak at one of his restaurants. Paris (the city, not the pute) makes beaucoup de bank selling overpriced menus of unextraordinary culinary interest to pretentious and often fat tourists. The way of the world, mais oui. But cue the glowing reviews all the same! Feature it in (oh Lord) Monocle! Applaud the “sustainability” of the endeavor! (Because eating the four-buck gyro is apparently not sustainable, but somehow toxic and earth-destroying. Fast food is Satanic!) Pretend that this tone-deaf decadence is really okay.
Well, whether in Athens, Las Vegas, Moscow or Beverly Hills, it really isn’t.
I know plenty of smart, hardworking Greeks who would be lucky to make four times what a meal/experience at “Delta” costs in an entire month. Not everybody is a tycoon or a tycoon’s cousin, not everybody Instagrams their food or has Renzo Piano on speed dial like I do. They’re just way too polite, fine, but I do take some offense on their behalves. What people need in a museum restaurant is something bright, airy, accessible, imaginative…even to the point of disruptive, but never to the terminus of ludicrousness. And 160 smackers for an “omnivore” menu flirts with the latter.
The restaurant at the World Trade Center had a smashing view. It was called Windows on the World. This new restaurant has a view of the Saronic Gulf, a very serene, historic body of water. The fact that this is nowhere reflected in the nomenclature is a sad omission.
I’ll keep saying it: elitist drift.
Frankly, traveller, I’d recommend the restaurant at the Acropolis Museum instead:
Find out more about the Acropolis Museum Café and restaurant here.
Sugar balls, anyone? Check out Tel Aviv’s finest here.