BAKERY OVERDRIVE: Have Athens high-end bakeries gone too far?
The "upscale" bakeries are popping up faster than 'shrooms après a thunderstorm
Athens is not Paris.
This is a good thing.
If you want moody weather, brooding locals, and the same old 19th century monuments vying for your attention, get thee to gay Paree. Also, if you want artisanal boulangeries, pricey macarons and dainty pâtisserie, Paris is for you.
Meanwhile, in Athens, it seems that every week brings us another fancy bakery that’s trying to do its level best to bake what is perceived to be A-list, Parisian-caliber croissants, buns, pastries and such. And believe me, you’re going to pay for this showmanship that no one really asked for.
This is not a list of the best new bakeries in Athens — if that’s your thing, there are plenty of other websites that have that information, or just Google map it. This is, in authentic French spirit, a bona fide gripe:
Does Athens need all this? Do you really need to walk into a fancy new bakery-cafe and walk out having spent north of $8 on a butter croissant and some kind of croissant-bun hybrid with a lone raspberry plunked on top?
No, traveler, you do not.
But it’s what I did the other day, just for the “fun” of it. The croissant was fine (I’ve had better, even in Athens) and as for the other thing, there was too much jam on the inside, and I can say with some authority that that’s a mistake the French don’t make.
A few months ago we saw people lining up outside the Ergon Bake House, in downtown Athens — my guess is the place was overly TikToked or whatever.
What kind of annoying people have the time or inclination to stand on a sidewalk in the hot sun waiting for a roll? The baked goods there are not bad we’ve tried ‘em (a little dry, in our view, across the board) but no, they are not worth waiting on a line for, any more than it’s worthwhile to wait in line for a cupcake because it came from a bakery where Sex and the City was filmed.
Who cares? So what? Pack a cracker in your bag and move along.
Speaking of overrated, we also checked out a new bagel shop — although one look at the bagels in the window told us that these were not New York bagels. Too dry, again, it seemed. Though, we didn’t actually try any — because the cashier wouldn’t sell us an individual bagel: only as part of a sandwich!
If a place in New York tried to tell a New Yorker that they had to buy a bagel sandwich in order to have a bagel, that place would be out of business in a about, oh, a half a day.
Obviously, Athens is not Paris, New York is not Chicago and people have the right to do things differently and push the envelope in directions they want.
But make no mistake, there is something slightly off about the fancycat bakery craze here. Just because something is new does not necessarily mean it should be celebrated, as the local press tends to do here. We aren’t gaga over the the prospect of the Erewhon-ization of the Athenian food space.
As for the taste of it? Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.
Athens is not Paris.
That, dear reader, is something that should be celebrated.
