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.