your best and worst greek food experience

[athinaeos]

fellow egulleteans!

you are cordially invited to describe your best and worst food experience in a greek restaurant, taverna, street foodstand, or open market, in greece, or abroad

please add your experiences from home cooking, if you have one!

cheers

[Tess]

I got to spend one summer touring Greece a few years ago. I remember wonderful smoked fish in a casual restaurant in Ioannina; huge white mulberries sold in paper cones by a woman on the street near Olympia; amazing sugar plums given to us with tea in a fabric store in Metsovo. Greek yogurt is about 10 times better in Greece than anywhere else. We didn't do any fine dining and I wasn't interested enough in restaurants at that point to write things down. It seemed like everything was good. The only minus I can remember is some goat in Metsovo that was boiled and looked and tasted like they'd put it through a washing machine.

I try to cook Greek food at home in the US-- we made an OK rabbit stifado once-- but it doesn't taste the same somehow. Some of my favorite restaurants in the Chicago area do it better, but I still need to get back to Greece and eat there.

[athinaeos]

tess,

as it happens,

fresh fruit and vegetables continue to taste good, yogurt is ok and in some places out of this world,

the goat continues to be a problem in many places because they overcook it;

it is quite an effort to make stiffado, congratulations!

as for chicago, i have been to a greek restaurant once, but do not remember the name; rather unusually, it was the acropolis, or the parthenon!

let me know if you need information about your next trip to greece

cheers

[Busboy]

Best: A hip new place in Psyrri called Hytra (maybe no longer so hip or so new) -- smashingly modern and intensly Greek at the same time. Or maybe it was just getting smashed on a Saturday afternoon at at Cafe Avissinia and eating classic taverna fare while listening to an extraordinary duo sing Greek folk songs. Or maybe it was raki and cheese for breakfast, at the market in Hania.

Worst: An anonymous taverna in Hania, Crete. Inedible steak. But the guy had stayed open late to serve me and I got to talking with a friendly older couple from Atlanta who, like me, had been in town for the Games, so I didn't mind so much.

[athinaeos]

i gather your trip was back in 2004, busboy;things have not changed much since then; Hytra in Athens is one of the best places to go for a meal; Hania in Crete is a town of extremes, like the people; you can get the best, and right next to it experience the worst; as for the traditional taverna fare, it continues to be a star if you get it in the right place! my personal preference is to visit small tavernas in the not so hip suburbs, where the owner and chef prepares for years with very fresh ingredients the same traditional honest food at very reasonable prices; in some of these places you can find the grandmother of the chef sitting in the next table, peeling potatoes, and can spend a lot of time listening to stories and recipes

cheers

[The Viking]

athinaeos:

straying slightly off-topic:

I'm going for a very short trip to Athens 3.-5th of March, will have the possibility to freely choose lunch or dinner on Saturday.

What's your best shot? (I'm not looking for too internatioalized cuisine).

Thanks in advance.

[athinaeos]

athinaeos:

straying slightly off-topic:

I'm going for a very short trip to Athens 3.-5th of March, will have the possibility to freely choose lunch or dinner on Saturday.

What's your best shot? (I'm not looking for too internatioalized cuisine).

Thanks in advance.

←

i suggest "Varoulko" for dinner

the address is Peireos 80 next to hotel Iridanos

phone number (210) 5228 400

url is www.varoulko.gr but it is only in greek at the moment

it has been awarded one Michelin star

reservations necessary

it is one of the best greek restaurants today, and you can taste modern creative greek cuisine

i recommend the seafood dishes

the somelier is quite good and will help you with the wine

expect to spend a minimum of EYRO80 for a two course meal, dessert and glasses of wine pairing the food

let me know if you need anything else

regards

[kerriar]

athinaeos:

straying slightly off-topic:

I'm going for a very short trip to Athens 3.-5th of March, will have the possibility to freely choose lunch or dinner on Saturday.

What's your best shot? (I'm not looking for too internatioalized cuisine).

Thanks in advance.

←

Viking, another choice could be Kollias in Piraeus.

The website here is also only in Greek http://www.kollias.gr/ but you will find details elsewhere on this site. Have a look at the website anyway - it has been put together by the soul of an artist

Was there with a friend last October and eat a marvellous and varied meal - everything in the kitchen looks so good that we ended up ordering enough to fill the (not very big) table. Freshness and straightforward skilled cooking are the keywords. Mainly Greek people eating and almost no English to be heard. Good selection of Greek wines and if you are not familiar, just trust what they suggest.

Both of us later recommended Kollias to different friends - in my case the result was to be woken up with a mid-night phone call from there to let me know that they had just finished eating the best fish ever.

One thing to be aware of - in each case the taxi driver had enormous difficulty in finding the place in the back streets of Piraeus. But persist and it will be worth it. Here also you will need to reserve.

Compared with the previous recommendation, Kollias is probably without any Michelin star and more demotic in style. Why not try both.

[athinaeos]

"kollias" is also an excellent place!

i would try to go there with someone who speaks greek in order to taste the full potential of the place

enjoy!

[The Viking]

Alas: I probably won't be able to go to Piraeus, although I had the restaurant listed as a definite prospect.

[Pille]

I've been to Greece couple of times and enjoyed very nice food. Some great gyros, a fancy wedding dinner, delicious meatballs cooked by my friend's grandma on Sifnos, tomatokeftedes & fava on Santorini. As I dated a Greek guy for a while, I was also cooking lots of nice Greek dishes at home, incl stifado, tsoureki, spanakopita. I'm due to attend another wedding in Greece this summer, and will make sure I'll check out some good restaurants both in Athens and on Santorini (so any suggestions would be welcome:)

[Busboy]

This thread is getting a bit dated but does go over a great number of restaurants in Athens including some good cheap Tavernas, Kollias and Athens' two other Michelin-starred places (besides Varoulko) Spondi (downtown) and Vardis, way uptown at the end of the Green Line, in Kifissia. It also has links to two other food sites that may be helpful to visitor, and some rule-of-thumb rules on getting along. Not that anything is more likely to be valuable than athinaeos' advice, but the thread and the links are are a start.

Viking: do note that what Athenians think of as Saturday (and Sunday) lunch starts between two and four (after the stores close and shopping ends for the day) goes for hours, and is likely to involve copious drink. See my report on Cafe Avissinia, which is a fine place to hit if you want to spend the morning kicking around the Acropolis (if you haven't, do this) and the antique stores. One my colleagues -- a philosophy major, at that -- thinks that weekend lunch is Greece's greatest gift to civilization.

[Alchemist]

In Thailand I had tzeeki (sp) cucumber, garlic and yogurt made with stawberry yogurt.

[athinaeos]

This thread is getting a bit dated but does go over a great number of restaurants in Athens including some good cheap Tavernas, Kollias and Athens' two other Michelin-starred places (besides Varoulko) Spondi (downtown) and Vardis, way uptown at the end of the Green Line, in Kifissia.  It also has links to two other food sites that may be helpful to visitor, and some rule-of-thumb rules on getting along.  Not that anything is more likely to be valuable than athinaeos' advice, but the thread and the links are are a start.

←

the thread is great busboy, congratulations for putting all of this together!

[Hector]

My best and worst experiences with greek food would be some of experiences in the town and surroundings of Rethimno, Crete..

Foodwise (& otherwise); the main main restaurant streets in the touristy town of Rethimno is not to be recomended to anyone. Expensive outdoor places, serving shitty fried eggs, bacon, english sausages and french fries at lousy tourist rates. Or lobster dinners for hundreds of euros. With the greek food alternative on the ugly menu (with photos) being the ussual "Greek food plate" with a bit of burned Moussaka (bathing in steaming hot bechamel sauce) thrown with greek sallad. Some of the waiters who tried to get tourists into their restaurant even knew my native language Swedish - which hints a bit of greed and desperation to get as many swedish tourists into the lousy places (most Swedish tourists know at least english or german so when salesmen use our languages abroad it's always for charming us into buying stuff).

In the begining of the trip, I thought this was what I was going to get to eat the whole week..

But after one try at the one of these lousy places which looked the best (merely out of pure hunger and tiredness). We decided to get off the beaten track and into the off beat little places that there might be. On a dead end street, we found a small local restaurant without any name or any sign. It was just an outdoor

serving place, where a small old woman named Maria, served homecook genuine dishes in her house for a quite small payment. You got a beautiful threecourse dinner for practically nothing. You actually went in the old womans house and picked what you wanted to eat.

The food was great. A fresh dillseasoned lamb intestine- and avgolemonosoup as a starter with a small phyllo dough pastry, roasted chicken with fresh whole grilled tomatoes, pistaccio nuts and some kind of pasta, humble roast lamb seasoned with various fresh spices and barbecued, with chunky deep fried potatoes.

We were frequents at Marias restaurant all week long.

The other great place in this trip was a nice modern Mezedesrestaurant were there where only greek customers. It was a beautiful and lively place on an otherwise quite street. It served barbecued fresh octopus freshly from a charcoal grill right beside the outdoor serving. They served loads of different kinds ofsellfish, mussels, barbecued fish, tarama, shrimps in various manners. Mainly with lemon and oregano. Sallad with fresh artichokes with a plate of barbecued octopus, squid and shrimp. A kind of firm taramsalata on the side. It was bliss.

[Pille]

This thread is getting a bit dated but does go over a great number of restaurants in Athens including some good cheap Tavernas, Kollias and Athens' two other Michelin-starred places (besides Varoulko) Spondi (downtown) and Vardis, way uptown at the end of the Green Line, in Kifissia.  It also has links to two other food sites that may be helpful to visitor, and some rule-of-thumb rules on getting along.  Not that anything is more likely to be valuable than athinaeos' advice, but the thread and the links are are a start.

Thank you, Busboy, this was very useful!

[Busboy]

This thread is getting a bit dated but does go over a great number of restaurants in Athens including some good cheap Tavernas, Kollias and Athens' two other Michelin-starred places (besides Varoulko) Spondi (downtown) and Vardis, way uptown at the end of the Green Line, in Kifissia.  It also has links to two other food sites that may be helpful to visitor, and some rule-of-thumb rules on getting along.  Not that anything is more likely to be valuable than athinaeos' advice, but the thread and the links are are a start.

Thank you, Busboy, this was very useful!

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I'm glad it was helpful. One more thing to add: I'm not sure if they'll be in season, but Santorini is famous for its fava beans -- to which I have a strange and powerful attraction -- and for its white wines. Something to think of while you are there (friends say it is wonderful).

[Pille]

I'm glad it was helpful.  One more thing to add: I'm not sure if they'll be in season, but Santorini is famous for its fava beans -- to which I have a strange and powerful attraction -- and for its white wines.  Something to think of while you are there (friends say it is wonderful).

←

I will! I had those fava beans back in 2002, and they were delicious! Fava and tomatokeftedes (also a Santorini speciality) are two items on my must-have-again list:)

Pille

[athinaeos]

I will! I had those fava beans back in 2002, and they were delicious! Fava and tomatokeftedes (also a Santorini speciality) are two items on my must-have-again list:)

Pille

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pille, pair them with asyrtiko wine (i believe this is what busboy was referring to) and you will have a ticket to heaven! (i gather you have already been there!)

regarding your trip and restaurants in athens, when will you come and for how long? many restaurants are closed for holidays during a period in the summer

[athinaeos]

My best and worst experiences with greek food would be some of experiences in the town and surroundings of Rethimno, Crete..

←

hector, it is very good to hear that honest Maria and her humble lamb saved the day for you!

when you visit Crete again, try to visit some of the villages in the mountains or away from the tourist centers of Crete

[Megiste]

My most memorable meals in Greece have been the simplest and unexpected. The small taverna on a remote island, the little family restaurant found on the back street in Rhodos. Simply wonderful.

Heading back to Athens and the islands in April and May and can't wait to stumble on new gems.

[The Viking]

Well, I'm back and if I should stick to the heading of the topic the answer is very simple:

48 The Restaurant!

www.48therestaurant.com

Dinner on saturday there was extremely good, in a modernly dramatic setting that interiorwise has borrowed certain elements from the Supper Club in Amsterdam.

From the seabass and octopus carpacchio, extremely fresh throug to the lightly salted tuna, ceviche, succulent (but labourcostly) grilled red mullet to succulent slow cooked leg of lamb, everything was superb (Then again, maybe my expectations weren't too high?).

Found one stellar white wine at an extremely competitive price; 200 Mersault from Coche-Dury.

Had a wine from Makedonia, single grape varietyr that did not really stand out, but complemented the lamb rather nicely. The imported red wines did have a rather steep markup though.

Highly recommended!

[phrederic]

Well Athenian, this thread is an invitation to rant and rave so I love it.

On the other hand, Greek food--and Greek restaurants whether foreign or domestic--range so wildly between the repulsive and the sublime that there is a veritable embarrassment of experience from which to choose.

The worst? The absolute worst? Which doth merit most the hate and bile? Zounds! I wouldn't know where to begin, there have been so many. So many plastic grape vines, the slick table-cloths covered with plates of lukewarm low-quality meat, its fat and gristle congealing. The jaws ache and the gorge rises at the memory of so much rubbery calmer. The weeks-old refrigerated gloppy taramas and tsatsikis. The salads drowning in cheap white vinaigre so potent your palate won't recover for a week. We've all seen it. And at least half of the time we've enjoyed it. The unspeakable retsina lubricating the imagination, Zorba (all apologies to Mr. Kazantzakis) burbling at high volume through the stereo, the view of Piraeus, the old harbor at Chania or just the dancers at the wedding party in the back room.... We've all eaten really bad Greek food and enjoyed the experience.

So whither the nadir of hellenistic cuisine?

Any one of two dozen restaurants in the Plaka? Those young hip waiters avoiding your eyes to ogle the girls, who occasionally remember to slouch back and forth to the kitchen to return with tepid soup? But no, we can still enjoy the experience sometimes. The conversation, the bustle, the acropolis looming over us, mitigate our disgust to such an extent we can sometimes even fool ourselves into thinking what we just ate was somehow related to food.

The Taverna in Hamburg off of the Reeperbahn? Maybe. Those spanokopita somehow managed to become black holes of oil containing many times their mass of warm grease which dripped onto the plate. But it was a student-restaurant. It was cheerful, fun and cheap. It wouldn't be fair to single it out as the absolute worst.

Possibly that wildly popular place in Chicago's Greek town. The food all comes out of cans and plastic vats. The latin american waiters teaching everyone to perform some kind of tequila popper ritual with glasses of the worst possible ouzo. When the bread is brought to your table the WHITE has a thick oxidized crust on it. Then again, at a table with 20 colleagues, everyone laughing and toasting, shouting above the bozoukis, it makes a good party. If not much of a culinary delight.

The worst? Impossible to say. The worst experience certainly goes to one of the myriad mezze joints in the old town of Heraklion. Full of very happy, very loud people. Jet lagged, tired, not feeling up to rising to the occasion, we just needed food. And they take forever to serve us slop. But it still isn't fair, as, in a different mood, one might be able to forget the nastiness in the plate.

The best isn't that much easier. I have so many happy memories of really spectacular greek meals.

The apex could be The Grand Bretagne last year in Athens. Restaurants with magnificent views are so often disappointing. But the meal may have been the best Greek meal I've ever had. Not Greek, you say? I differ. The head chef may have been French, I don't remember. But most of the others in the Kitchen were Greek. The ingredients were local. The inspiration was Greek mediterranean. The wine list may of had Chateau Pavie, but it also had a score of wonderful wines made from indigenous grape varietials in Crete and Macedonia. Fabulous food. If the service wasn't impeccable it was still among the best I've seen in Greece.

Too rarified? That restaurant in Agios Nikolaos with the life restoring Avgalemno.... Everything fresh as can be. The small old house, wood and stone, perched above the bay and away from the Café du Lac. A winelist to discover and they actually managed to bring the dishes in the order we asked in order to accompany the wines! (This seems to be a problem in Greece. No matter how often I plead, food comes all at once with no respect for which wine is currently being honored)

Within Greece, I suppose, it makes sense to ask for the best dining experience on Thera or in the Dodecanese than overall. But I'm trying.

In Munich there are dozens of first-rate Greek restaurants. (I have favorites at the Viktualienmarkt and in Sendling). Nothing special in appearance but great food, responsive and rapid sevice.

Here in Paris we had a restaurant which seems to have closed in which I had at least 2 of the 10 best Greek meals of my life. (Kalemnos in the Boulevard Montparnasse. If anyone knows where they've gone, please let me know.} So many of the so-called Greek restaurants in the city of light would instantly top a list of the worst in the world.

Maybe my problem is this: if mediocre or outright bad Greek restaurants can still evoke pleasant memories, it becomes hard to remember the relative quality in the plate and the wine glass. Anybody have similar feelings?

[Behemoth]

The Taverna in Hamburg off of the Reeperbahn? Maybe. Those spanokopita somehow managed to become  black holes of oil containing many times their mass of warm grease which dripped onto the plate. But it was a student-restaurant. It was cheerful, fun and cheap. It wouldn't be fair to single it out as the absolute worst.

You must have known you were tempting fate with that one. Better to hold off until 5am and head down to the harbor. Having said that, there was a very nice little place in Eimsbuettel, near the Lutterothstr subway stop. Limited but excellent menu, mostly lamb and fish.

In Munich there are dozens of first-rate Greek restaurants. (I have favorites at the Viktualienmarkt and in Sendling). Nothing special in appearance but great food, responsive and rapid sevice.

Specifics, pretty please?!

Edited March 27, 2006 by Behemoth (log)

[athinaeos]

I would like to add an observation following the thoughts and experiences expressed in recent messages.

One of the key features of the greek cuisine is the relative simplicity of the cooking process and the prominence of the quality of the ingredients. If you have tasted a baby lamb roast that was melting in your mouth radiating the aromas of the land you know what I mean. Some with grilled baby squid that you grill as they came out of the water. I could even remember the sublime taste of a tomato that was served cut in four pieces and sprinkled with coarse sea salt.

In my experience the best tavernas and restaurants in Greece serving food with the above features are away from tourist areas, away from monuments and temples, hidden somewhere in the back streets of low to middle income urban neighbourhoods or villages.

Outside Greece the issue is far more challenging! Simply because the provisioning is iin most of the cases from the local markets.