Athens

Aster: Something for Everyone, From Crete and Beyond

When you think about where to send a visitor who is only in Athens for a week – or worse, only a night – it’s difficult to pick the perfect place. It should have wide-ranging hours, not only to keep the options open, but to ensure that those who dine early will be able to make it. It should be centrally located, but not too central, bringing the visitor to an area of the city they might not go to otherwise, but one that doesn’t require a car or an inconvenient bus transfer. The space should be pleasant, with inside and outside tables, and preferably stuffed with locals.

Athens

The Black Salami: Serious Sandwiches

It doesn’t matter how early you show up to the Black Salami Microbakery – there’s always a line. Even right at 9 a.m., when the gates have just been pulled up, tourists and locals alike are waiting for fresh, flaky sandwiches and crusty loaves of bread. Clean, sleek, and cool, with funky marbled counters like a refrigerator mosaic cake, the bakery floods with light on sunny days, illuminating a display case filled with breakfast and lunch options. This is one of a number of new spots that have popped up in the Exarchia neighborhood recently. It’s also part of a transformation the neighborhood has been seeing for some time now – one that has accelerated in the past year, as the city’s newest metro line raises questions about the pros and cons of opening a major transit station in the main square.

Athens

Zarkadoulas: Crab by the Kilo

Nikea, known before 1940 as Kokkinia (sometimes, you’ll still hear this old name used), is an area that feels almost like a different city, perhaps even a bigger village on an island. When you come out of the metro, the road is dotted with houses instead of higher-rise apartment buildings, and it is mostly quiet, with one very notable exception – guys in cars with high-power engines rev up as they move through this area. These are kagouras, a classification of car-obsessed men, usually, that are found to the outer suburbs of Athens, mostly in the south and west. They’re a clear sign that you’ve truly left the center of the city.

Athens

Trigono: Grilled Meat Detour

The typical after-beach taverna in Greece almost always focuses on fish. You want to sit seaside, still a little salty from your swim, watching the last rays of the day’s sunshine drip into the sea. It’s certainly a beautiful image, and very typically Greek. Most of the time, a day trip to the beach does end this way, particularly for Athenians when they’re looking for an escape from the sticky heat of the city center. Trigono, a restaurant in the town of Kalyvia, makes the case for ditching post-dip fish in favor of something else: grilled meat. Tomahawk steaks, lamb ribs, long spicy sausages, even offal cuts that you wouldn’t expect to see outside of major Greek holidays.

Athens

To Hohlidaki: Ouzeri Origins

Even though Athens is fairly close to the sea, there are times when we crave a quick island getaway – to taste the best tomato salads of the Cyclades, or one of the many pungent cheeses of Naxos, or real smoked apaki from Crete, but we don’t have the time (or resources) to venture out of the city limits. That’s when we head to To Hohlidaki, an ouzeri experience that feels like a tour of Greece from the comfort of a quaint Athenian neighborhood. We’ve been several times, and each visit gives a new picture of what the country has to offer. This ouzeri is steeped in history, and owner Alexandros Giolma takes every opportunity to mingle the past with the present.