Athens’s rich culinary world might feel intimidating to tackle – especially for those who find themselves with just a day or two in Greece’s capital city as a jumping-off point for their island holiday. We’re firm believers in Athens as a destination in its own right, one that merits a long stay, not a stopover – especially when we consider the vast variety of food it has to offer. Whether you have six days or six hours to spend in the city, we’ve narrowed down what we believe to be some of the best restaurants in Athens, a beyond the ordinary collection of our favorite tavernas, drink spots, and dessert joints across town. Our local team has been writing about Athens food for almost a decade, and considers the following some of the city’s essential bites.

Thick and creamy yogurt topped with honey and walnuts, doughnut holes doused in honey (loukoumades), and custard-filled phyllo tarts (galaktoboureko) – Greece is home to a wide array of traditional desserts that are irresistible at any time of day or season. Here, we’ve rounded up some of the best spots to find these sweet treats, and have also included a long list of ice cream shops selling our new favorite dessert: gelato. In a place where half the year we live like it’s summer, gelato has become about as popular as it can get in Athens. Opened in July 2014 near Syntagma Square, Le Greche can be blamed for starting the trend of high-quality gelato in Athens. Only the best ingredients make it through the doors of owner Evi’s laboratory.

Pies, sweet and savory, constitute a massive chapter of traditional Greek cuisine, and are also a timeless popular street food all across the nation. Most classic Greek pie shops tend to open early in the morning, as pies are popular for breakfast, and close in the afternoon, usually after they have sold out for the day. That’s why Ta Stachia, a small shop in Exarchia, stands out – an after-hours pie shop, it runs steadily throughout the night, not only feeding all the pub crawlers and nighthawks, but also staying open until about noon for the early birds who walk their dogs or set off for work or school.

Whoever came up with the expression “I don’t give a fig” had obviously never tasted a Greek fig fresh off the tree. How figs, almost certainly dried, came to be considered common and worthless in late medieval England is a mystery, but for the Greeks, they have always been something to treasure and preserve, to be enjoyed in all seasons. As the Bible tells us, figs have been around since the very beginning. After taking bites out of the forbidden fruit, possibly an apple, Adam and Eve suddenly acquired the knowledge that they were naked and covered themselves with the leaves of the fig tree.

Orzo, which in Greek is called kritharaki (or manestra), is a rice-shaped pasta that is particularly popular in Greek and Italian kitchens. Interestingly, its name both in Italian and Greek means barley, which would once have been the most commonly used grain in this region of the Mediterranean. Research suggests that this kind of pasta was a substitute for rice, which as late as the 1960s was relatively expensive and hard to get. Orzo is used in traditional recipes, such as giouvetsi, where it is baked with meat, poultry, or seafood. Its use is very versatile; it can be used in soups and salads, while these days in contemporary Greek restaurants, it is often used instead of rice for dishes like kritharoto, which resembles risotto.

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.

Neo Psychiko, a suburb north of central Athens, is just a 15-minute drive from the city’s busy Syntagma central square yet feels like a world away. Residential and family-oriented, the area is greener and quieter than downtown. At its heart is Plateia Eleftherias (“Freedom Square”), a lively spot with a playground, a kiosk, cafes and restaurants – the usual you’ll find in any decent Athenian plaza. People gather here from early in the morning to late at night. One of those reliably busy all-day gathering spots is O Foititis, an assuming family-run fish restaurant that has been loyally serving locals since 2005, when resident Andreas Sfikas decided to turn his experience running a neighborhood snack bar into something more ambitious.

Souvlaki might just be Greece’s most popular food. Meat cooked on a stick, wrapped in a pita, dressed with sliced tomato and onion and a dollop of tzatziki, it can be eaten on the run – and it’s often the first thing visitors run to eat as soon as they arrive in this country. It’s an enduring favorite for Greeks, too. Not only is it delicious, but the standard kebab* is also inexpensive, costing around just 3 to 4 euros. The challenge, then, is to find kebabs and gyros that are more imaginative, still juicy and delicious, with a wider range of fillings and toppings, perhaps even vegetarian and vegan options – and which are still moderately priced.

I moved to London in 2013 after living in Athens for five years with my sister. During that time, the first time we really lived on our own as adults, we developed a few routines and obsessions around food that we still follow to this day. They mostly revolved around our then-neighborhood, Mavili Square, and the center of Athens. In the years that followed, any plans to visit home started with picking which day we would go and get ourselves some souvlaki from Kostas on Mitropoleos street and peinirli from Peinirli Ionias on Panormou street (yes, both of these would happen on the same day!).

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.

I can’t think of a more comforting dish than soup. It can be as simple or complex as you wish, and as cheap or expensive as you can afford. Just open your fridge or pantry, and you’re sure to find something to turn into a liquid meal – vegetables, herbs, spices, meat, poultry, seafood, grains, legumes… the list goes on. If you’re looking for a restoring bowl of soup in Greece, one of your best bets is a late-night restaurant (many operate round-the-clock) or diner. These spots, some of which are located near or inside central food markets, are perhaps best known for serving patsa (πατσά), tripe soup, a hangover helper as well as fuel for people performing hard labor early in the day – like market workers do.

The food scene in Greece is constantly being enriched. More and more local chefs are opening their own restaurants, many of which have a creative focus on the local cuisine and produce. Seasonality, sustainability, tradition and high-quality ingredients are in the spotlight and traditional cuisine gets to shine with the sophisticated touch of a talented younger generation of Greek chefs. The restaurant scene – especially in Athens – is also complemented by diverse cuisines of other cultures brought into Greece by immigrants who have made their homes here. Authentic dishes from all over the world can now be found in different corners of the city, bringing flavor to quieter, less-central neighborhoods where rent is still affordable as prices rise across Athens.

Tanini Agapi Mou may be one of the most ambitious wine bars in Athens’s growing wine scene. But nothing about it feels pretentious.   Plants hang from the ceiling and windows, growing wildly and draping the store in green. The furniture is simple, with tables crafted by independent producers out of highly-sustainable birchwood. The music that fills the room is a mix that spans genres, but is a pleasant background sound to the clinking of glasses. The employees don’t wear uniforms, and when they talk about the menu, their enthusiasm is real. 

In ancient times, the murex shell, “porphyra” in Greek, was the source of a beautiful dye so rare and costly to produce that it was only used for royalty – the royal purple. Three years ago, in Athens’ northern suburb of Melissia, a restaurant calling itself Porphyra opened, preparing high-quality seafood with a creative yet accessible flair – no foam or unrecognizable frills. We have yet to taste a dish there that was less than scrumptious and because we have been following the career of owner, Christos Cjoncari, for 20 years now, we wanted to find out how he does it. When we first met, he was in his late teens, a waiter at Kali Parea, a popular fish place in Nea Erythraia.

It’s fall and the wonderful farmers markets of Athens are filled with the season’s harvest; fresh walnuts and chestnuts, persimmons, pomegranates, quince and, of course, the two queens of the season: pumpkin and butternut squash. I love using butternut squash or pumpkin in a variety of recipes and these traditional fritters are one of my favorite ways to enjoy this nutritious vegetable. This is a recipe that I include in my cookbook Salt of the Earth (Quadrille, 2023), and it is inspired by the traditional version from the region of Messenia in southern Peloponnese. In my take on this dish, I add some chopped green olives as I like variety in textures and flavors and the olives, along with crumbled feta, add a beautiful layer of umami to the fritters.