ATHENS— Before the 1990s, Greeks ate simply and very well. Then a new generation who had lived and studied abroad returned home, more worldly and more demanding. And when the stock market took a wild swing north, designer restaurants began to open to accommodate the nouveau riche. Suddenly Athens had chefs instead of cooks. Anything and everything new was lauded, and strange combinations appeared—Balkan-Polynesian cuisine, ginger grated over everything. But then chefs got it: They began to look inward, to the briefly forfeited traditions of healthfulness, regionalism, seasonality, and simplicity of their native cuisine. They gave these traditions a contemporary spin, forging a new vernacular. Grilled fish will always have a spot in the Greek heart, and, while traditional grilled-meat places still abound, a surge of steak houses has recently joined them. Listed here are the best restaurants from the next generation of chefs who have breathed new life into moussaka.

 

48 THE RESTAURANT
Chef Christoforos Peskias is Athens’s own Ferran Adria, complete with a kitchenful of molecular appliances: sous vide ovens, foaming canisters, and agaragar on every shelf. His food runs from roasted-tomato “sushi,” a signature reinvention of the classic Greek stuffed tomato, to sous vide pork that melts off the bone, to house-cured salt-cod fritters and almond “foamed” skordalia (garlic sauce). It’s inventive food, and the stark, modern decor reflects that spirit.
48, Armatolon
and Klefton Str.,
Ambelokipi
30-210/641-1082

Alatsi
The media crowd hits this centrally located, buzzing restaurant, whose name means “salt” in the Cretan dialect, to see, be seen, and savor the modern renditions of Cretan classics. Alatsi is one
of the few restaurants to pack in a crowd for lunch and dinner six days a week. Don’t miss the Cretan snails with rosemary and garlic and the staka—sheep’s milk butter—on fried eggs.
13 Vrassida Str.,
Ilisia
30-210/721-0501

Aneton
If you’re in the mood for a taxi adventure to a wealthy suburb, take a ride out to cozy, retro Aneton—“comfortable” in Greek—where some of the most creative, innovative Greek cooking happens nightly under the watchful eye and talented hands of chef-owner Vasilis Kalides. You might catch him on a playfully cosmopolitan night when he’s daubed a bit of truffle butter onto a classic Greek grilled kasseri sandwich, or, better still, you’ll get to sample his Greek-style braised beef cheeks.
19 Lekka Str.,
Maroussi
30-210/806-6700

Electra Restaurant
A welcome anomaly, this restaurant is located on the rooftop of a hotel in the heart of the Plaka, Athens’s most touristy neighborhood. This doesn’t bode well, yet with its majestic view of the Parthenon and its young, talented chef, Yiorgos Venieris, Electra beats the odds. Try potato soup with fennel, basturma, and soft-cooked egg; lentil and caviar salad; or sea bream, which nods to modern technique with
a very Greek, very juicy sous vide treatment.
18–20, Nikodimou Str.,
Syntagma
30-210/337-0000

Ouzadiko
Even after a decade in business, this is still the place to come for lunch (or dinner), especially if you’re strolling around Kolonaki to shop or sightsee. Ouzadiko specializes in Salonica home cooking, which means an artist’s way with simple bean and vegetable stews: There are several per season, luscious, hearty combos like chickpeas with spinach or black-eyed peas with wild fennel. Ouzadiko is a meze place with one of the world’s foremost collections of ouzo, the anise-flavored Greek national drink.
Karneadou Str.,
Kolonaki
30-210/729-5484

Papadakis
Argyro Barbariga is a hero. She’s one of the few female chefs in Athens and one of the few chef-owners. She has a young child, hosts a daily morning TV show, and writes books. On top of all that, six nights a week she works here, high on a residential street in Kolonaki. Her cooking is elegant yet homey, with an island freshness that recalls the chef’s Paros roots. The dishes not to miss are the slow-baked chickpeas with a dollop of tarama, the skate salad, the octopus in honey sauce, and the mastiha cream for dessert. This is one place you won’t be alone if you want to dine earlier than à la grecque.
47 Voukourestiou Str.,
Kolonaki
30-210/360-8621

Parea
Chef Lefteris Lazarou (see Varoulko) and partners have opened an all-meat place where chef Komninos Mouflouzelis has done for meat what Lazarou did for fish a generation ago: He took it off the grill and put it in stew pot and oven in an attempt (successful for the most part) to create a new language for Greek meat cooking. Dishes include rabbit braised with whole small onions (stifado) served over brioche; braised sausage with celery, cardamom, and marjoram; and small pies with a local soft, sharp Greek cheese (katiki), lamb’s liver, and greens. The lamb with hazelnuts and figs is especially delicious.
Eridanus Hotel
78 Pireaus Str.
30-210/520-5360

Pasaji
Along with Argyro Bar-bariga, chef Nena Ismir-noglou is one of the few women at a professional stove. Here she serves reinterpretations of politiki kouzina, the cooking of the Greeks of Con-stantinople. Ismirnoglou has an elegant way with the simplest dishes; even her take on the gyro is refined. Try the meat-stuffed apricots and prunes, the house salted cod with eggplant cream, and the fish burger, served on homemade carob bread.
City Link, Spyromiliou Arcade,
Syntagma
30-210/322-0714

Thalassinos
This spot, on a side street in a middle-class neighborhood, is a favorite of discriminating seafood lovers, and seafood meze lovers. For years, the affable owner, Yiorgos Loukas, has made his simple, somewhat kitschy taverna a favorite among the sports-journalism-literary set. His taramosalata, grilled octopus, seafood saganaki (mussels or shrimp cooked in spiced tomato sauce), and greens-and-seafood fritters are worth the 15-minute cab ride. His specialty is the freshest local seafood on the grill, and his chocolate soufflé has been the famed signature dessert since the day
he opened, almost two decades ago.
32, Irakleous and Lysikratous Str.,
Tzitzifies
30-210/940-4518

Varoulko
Chef-owner Lefteris Lazarou has been a bright spot on the capital’s dining scene for more than 20 years. Starting as a simple fish taverna in the boondocks of Piraeus, this place has gone decidedly uptown since then. Varoulko, now in the same boutique hotel as Parea (see above), is one of four restaurants in Athens with a Michelin star, and Lazarou has enjoyed a continuous barrage of well-deserved praise both at home and abroad. His menu changes every night (more or less) and might include such inventions as octopus cooked in sweet wine and served over trahana cream; squid-ink soup (a specialty of the
house); sardines grilled with smoked-eggplant cream; and his take on seafood peinirli, which is usually a ped-estrian dough boat but which becomes a vessel of the highest order in his very able hands.
Eridanus Hotel
80 Pireaus Str.
30-210/522-8400

Diane Kochilas is a food writer, cooking teacher, chef, and restaurant consultant and the author of seven cookbooks in Greek and English. She splits her time between Athens and New York City. "Compass: Eating in Athens" originally appeared in the Winter 2007 issue of Culture+Travel.