"Under Athens" Greek restaurant in Rutherford

[phaelon56]

This place opened last spring in the basement underneath the Eros Coffeehouse. The young guy who is the woner of both did much of the interior work with his family and it's gorgeous - feels like you're sitting in a side chamber of an old Greek temple. I made the mistake of ordering non-Greek dishes - a batter dipped and fried fish and also a baked and crab/shrimp stuffed fish filet. One entree was mediocre and the other barely passable. In his defense I should point out that the owner insisted on not charging us for the entree that we found inedible. The lemon-chicken soup (sorry I forget the name but it's a traditional greek soup - begins with the letter "m"). The onwer if this place is a REALLY nice guy and I hope to see him succeed. I was there only a few weeks after they opened and thinking about a return visit but just curious - have any of you tried it and has it improved or perhaps should I simply have stuck to traditioonal Greek entrees in such an establishment?

[phaelon56]

I meant to say that the lemon-chicken soup was incredible - very, very tasty.

[201]

This only qualifies as third-hand information to you since it was originally second-hand information to me, but some friends of mine were also there a couple of weeks after Under Athens opened and found it to be rather lackluster.  I would have to ask them if they remember what they ordered, but I never ate there myself because they didn't consider it to be worth the return.

As I said, third-hand information... take it for what it's worth (not much).  However, to your question about whether you should order the Greek dishes I would have to say "most definitely".  It's generally been my experience that a restaurant's "specials" are called that for a reason; even if the rest of the menu looks top-notch, I almost ALWAYS order the specials on my first couple of visits.

[walter maier]

We ate there about 2 months or so ago, a group of... lemme see about 8 or 10 of us.  Here is what I wrote at the time:

After Athens, a fairly new contemporary Greek restaurant, is in the basement of a street level cafe called Eros Cafe. You have to enter through the cafe and then through big silver doors to go to the basement, where After Athens is located. I won't even attempt the Greek names of what we ate, but it was all good. We started with what we thought was going to be 2 platters of appetizer combos and 2 orders of flaming fried cheese. We got the fried cheese, on fire natch, however we got 4 platters of appetizers. Seeing as we ate everything, we didn't argue. The entrees were a mix -- salmon special (very good by the way), flounder stuffed with crab meat, pork chops stuffed with spinach and feta, baby lamb chops, and some other stuff at the other end of the table. Everything I tried was delicious. Desserts were bakalava (quite good), apple pie, double chocolate pie, chai, coffee... the usual suspects. All told, with tip included (the restaurant added the tip), came to $44/person. An excellent value. There was a live jazz band that evening (vibes, drums, bass) but they advertise Greek music Weds-Friday. We loved the subterranean ambience, and the service was very good -- attentive, not annoying.

Sorry I could not recall more details, but we averaged a bottle of wine/person.  Haven't been back, but that's more our fault then the restaurant's.  I'd rather go back on a night with the live Greek music, to be honest.

[Lady S]

I went to After Athens a couple of weeks ago and enjoyed it very much. The Greek food is not bad, but it's the total atmosphere that I found quite charming. Greek friends who took me loved it. There is usually music, Greek on weeknights and jazz on weekends. I will definately go again and take friends just because I like the atmosphere.

[phaelon56]

Thanks for the updates folks. I suppose I'll try it again as it's only a short few blocks from the house and a pleasant walk at that. Apparently they must have improved since that first few weeks, judging by the reports I see here.