An Athens restaurant explosion (no, not literally)
The Greek capital's dining scene is in a highly kinetic state — just outside the tourist grid
“Excuse me, are you American?” I asked the couple, though I already knew the answer: middle-aged man sporting a baseball cap (European dudes don’t do caps), conservatively dressed female companion walking with a sense of purpose, but both checking their phones with a palpable soupçon of anxiety.
“Yes,” they replied.
“I thought so,” I said. “Are you lost?”
They were not — well, not exactly. They were staying at the Grand Hyatt Athens (ed. note: which is not really all that grand, though it is a Hyatt), in a sort of funny location on Syngrou Avenue, which cuts through southern Athens like a highway, essentially cutting off the better-known tourist center from a whole other section of the city. You can cross it at certain points — usually by dreary underground tunnel — or for the uninitiated, take a cab.
These Americans were trying to get to Plaka, but had turned left when leaving the hotel instead of right, which is how we ended up practically bumping into each other on a street corner in Nea Smyrni.
Nea where? Nea Smyrni is a municipality adjacent to Athens, Greece, named after the former Greek city Smyrna, whence many refugees arrived and settled in the Nea Smyrni area following the 1922 Burning of Smyrna, today’s Izmir, Turkey. And little did they know, but the couple had inadvertently wandered into the heart of one of the city’s buzziest new restaurant scenes.
Now, the tourists in Athens flock to the Acropolis — and I duly pointed the wayward Yanks in the right direction — but most everyone else flocks to whatever the hottest restaurant du jour is. That’s what brought me these leafy precincts just about two miles from the Plaka but a world away in terms of vibe and aesthetics — the latter mostly nondescript, as it were, but as for the former, that’s where things get interesting.
⋆.˚ 𓇼𓆝 𓆟 𓆞
Athens cool-hunters will tell you that the buzziest restaurant scenes in the city are to be found in and around classic (if wildly different) Athenian neighborhoods like Exarcheia and Pagrati — and, they are right. However, with some notable exceptions, what passes for trendy in those areas often comes off as chef-driven showy-offy; there are lots of new tables with misfired names like “Weeds” or “Topsoil” (we exaggerate, but just a bit) where the chefs seem hellbent on proving that restaurants in Greece can do more than serve just moussaka or roast chicken with potatoes. But we already knew they could – why pay through the nose for someone else’s insecurities?
Which brings me back to that sunny street corner in Nea Smyrni. I had just come from a white-hot brunch spot called, not Cafe Papadoupoulou but Peggy Sue. On a warm day in December the sidewalk tables were full to bursting and the contemporary interior mostly empty; this is how Greeks eat. And what they were tucking into bested the best “secret” East Village brunch boltholes: think Peggy’s Banana Split French Toast with custard, homemade berry jam, banana brûlée and maple syrup, or Peggy’s Benedict and — yes! — shakshuka, with a Greek twist (feta instead of whatever cheese they use in the Middle East, where the eggy tomato saucy dish originates.). We are talking major brunchtime yums here. They have another location, too.
This is to say nothing of the totally non-touristy Italian restaurants and Greek tavernas a few blocks south, in the heart of Nea Smyrni — the action starts on the edge of a broad esplanade peppered with monuments to the Greeks that the Turks of yore unceremoniously tossed into Izmir’s murky harbor. Some of those spots do rock a quasi-suburban vibe, whereas moving northward from Peggy Sue takes you the southern edge of quixotic Neos Kosmos, which is, to put it squarely, edgy. If anarchist-lite Exarcheia is “established” hipsterdom incarnate, then up-and-coming Neos Kosmos is freshly-baked hipster to the max.
This is in part due to location of course, on the “wrong” side of Syngrou but in the orbit of the Onassis Foundation Cultural Center, which though much smaller than the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center in Kallithea consistently comes out cooler on the coolness scale (call it the enduring legacy of Jackie O., but trust us on this). Historically speaking, on the wrong side of the tracks is where the less beautiful but also really interesting stuff is.
Walking north from Spathari to Evridamantos Street, the hipster bars like Lalos and third-wave coffee spots multiply. The atmosphere is laid-back — no tour buses or crowds — but also low-key effervescent; in other words, hip.
So if you are staying at the Grand Hyatt yes, turn right for the Acropolis, but if you want to breakfast or late-night graze like a champ, why, just turn left.🪶
