Some restaurants to consider in Athens, Greece and area

Fasten your gastronomic seat belt!
We were in Athens, Greece in the spring of 2017 and had a wonderful time.
For the benefit of anybody going to Greece, I am sharing information -- as per our experience -- about some restaurants in Athens and Piraeus.
Full disclosure: We were staying at Kinetta Beach Resort about an hour's high-speed train ride from Athens. It was lovely there and I have written about that resort elsewhere in this blog. The restaurant called Avra was excellent, as was this resort's poolside dining area called Taverna.
But many times, we were doing what tourists do.... we were exploring Athens and area. Then when it came time to eat, we patronized the following:

Spezie Pasta-Cafe, 3 Makrygianni Street, Akropolis, Athens, Greece.

                                     Delicious and affordable pizza with vegetables, above, at Spezia

                         They're big on "pie"....cheese pie and other kinds....at Spezie in Athens

 Spezie is a sidewalk café within walking distance of the famous Acropolis in Athens, Greece.

        This orange cake is to, as they say, "die for!" A specialty at Spezie sidewalk café in Athens.

              It was easy to check the prices and menu offerings from this stand in front of Spezie café.

            Spezie is located on the sidewalk level of this building in Athens, Greece and worth a visit!

             Watch for this sign on Makrygianni Street in Athens, close to the Acropolis train station.

A stone's throw, almost from the famous Acropolis, Spezie Pasta-Cafe is one of many sidewalk cafes to be found on Makrygianni Street in Athens. From some cafes, staff beckoned in friendly manner to entice you to eat there.

We liked the fact that the Spezie menu was up-front-and-centre on the pedestrian mall of this street. There is no traffic and because cafes are side-by-side for about a city block in this area, we strolled and looked at restaurants until we saw Spezie and its menu.

Staff was immediately friendly as we looked at the menu and we decided to sit for a meal at one of the tables outside, adjacent to the street.

We ordered pizza slices with vegetables on them and coffee. It wasn't long before it was time for dessert and the waiter suggested orange cake. From where I was sitting, I could see it atop a front-of-restaurant counter. We ordered the orange cake, a slice each, and it was decadently delicious!

The total invoice for what we had, including coffees each, was 13.5 Euros, certainly a reasonable price by Canadian standards! At the end of our meal we were given little cookies wrapped individually. They too were tasty!

We would return to Spezie if we ever get back to Greece!

Athina Bistrot, 3 Makrygianni Street, Acropolis, Athens.

                  Nancy studies the menu at Athina Bistrot, a sidewalk café in Athens, Greece.

                                     The friendly staff hard at work inside the Athina Bistrot.

                          Athina Bistrot restaurant is on a pedestrian mall near the Acropolis.

                     Here's the sign to watch for on Makryigianni Street near Acropolis train station.

                                George tries a local beer.....here's to being a tourist in Greece!

                                  Linen-topped tables at the Athina Bistrot in Athens, Greece.

                       George's choice at Athina Bistrot.....shrimp on a bed of orzo. Delicious!

          Nancy's choice....moussaka at Athina Bistrot near the historic Acropolis in Athens, Greece.

            Classy signs let you know that you have reached a classy sidewalk café in Athens, Greece.

It's not often that one finds two restaurants at exactly the same street address. We did so in Athens, Greece, when we came to 3 Makrygianni Street, adjacent to the historic Acropolis.

Athina Bistrot shares the same street address with another sidewalk cafe on a street which is packed with cafes.

We found a linen-topped table for two, underneath an awning and watched the world go by from that sidewalk-adjacent location. The street there is a pedestrian mall, so there are lots of people milling past ensuring that there is always a changing landscape!

The staff at Athina Bistrot were friendly and my wife Nancy and I had ordered dinners following a lot of sightseeing earlier in the day.

Nancy ordered Mousaka and I ordered shrimps with orzo. When in Greece, enjoy the Greek menu, I figured. The meals arrived beautifully presented, hot and – as we found out – delicious. The Mousaka cost 11.50 Euros and the shrimp with orzo cost 13.5 Euros. These prices were what one would expect from a reasonable restaurant in Canada. Here, in Greece, Athina Bistrot was worth every Euro.

The sidewalk cafes, in general, have a friendly atmosphere when they are busy with people. Here, we found people friendly and it's a United Nations of nationalities.

We had drinks, with me chosing a local beer. As we sat and enjoyed watching either the staff providing service, or the worldscape nearby, we were invited to try Mastic, which is a local liquor (as far as I know!). It tasted like lemoncello.

Our total invoice was 35.20 Euros. We discovered that they prefered cash, instead of credit, or debit, cards. Which was fine with us, but would have been a shock had we not had the cash handy.

Athina Bistrot's manager is Petros Pavlis and we not only enjoyed meeting him, but commend him and his staff for running an excellent restaurant.

Stamp, crepe restaurant in Corinth, Greece.

 It's easy to see what's happening in the kitchen at Stamp sidewalk café in Corinth, Greece.

                    A warm day calls for a cool beverage at Stamp restaurant in Corinth, Greece.

              Gouda cheese was a main ingredient in a "Number 6" on the menu at Stamp café in Corinth.

      Customers can see into the kitchen, sit inside, or watch the world go by at Stamp sidewalk café.

         An overhanging canopy protects customers from the sun at Stamp café in Corinth, Greece.

 Author George Czerny takes a selfie at the famous Corinth canal near the town of Corinth. It's easy to get a cab ride from the train station in Corinth to the canal and back. We recommend Anastasia Roussis Taxi Service. Corinth has a marvelous waterfront and a chamber of commerce office as well.

        Nancy doing what she loves to do.... shopping... near the Stamp restaurant in Corinth, Greece.

                   The waterfront in Corinth, Greece, is marvelous and lovely for sightseeing.

Here's proof that George posed for a photograph next to a statue at the waterfront in Corinth, Greece.

Part of the fun of exploring anyplace in the world is when it comes to mealtime. My wife Nancy and I were in Corinth, Greece, walking the waterfront when we decided it was time for lunch. We turned onto one of the many streets which lead to the waterfront, ambled along and looked at restaurants; including sidewalk cafes.

Stamp, a crepe restaurant, appealed to us. The street there is a pedestrian walkway and Stamp had tables and chairs beckoning to us from in front of a large window which opens into the restaurant. Some people were ordering inside and through the window we could see the food-preparation area.

I can honestly say that Stamp's menu was “Greek to me”, but we had fun reviewing their offerings. The menu at Stamp identifies menu items by number, much like some Chinese-food restaurants do in Canada.

We decided to order a number 6, a crepe with Gouda cheese and other filling items. We had watched orders being delivered to other patrons and decided that because of the sizeable portions, we would share one crepe.

It was a wise decision, but we had to ask twice to get the waitress to provide us with a second fork.

The crepe was delicious and along with soft drinks for both of us our total invoice was 6.60 Euros. That, we considered to be a bargain! The crepe itself cost 4.20 Euros.

If we ever get back to Corinth, we'll include another visit to Stamp!

Everest restaurant at the Athens Mall food court.

   This is the entrance to The Mall you will find
   adjacent to the Neratziotissa train station.

    Getting around Athens on the train is easy. Get to this station, walk out and you'll find The Mall. This is the biggest mall in Athens and -- I dare say -- the cleanest, brightest and it has high-end restaurants and a food court. The toilets here are sparkling clean, rivalling those I have seen at the Gun Wharf Quays mall in Portsmouth, England.

 While we were at The Mall in Athens, Greece, there was a Lego Festival under way. The mall's very helpful customer service staff were multi-lingual and of great, friendly assistance to us. Above, a lighthouse made of Lego which made me think of the lighthouse on Nottawasaga Bay near Collingwood, Ontario, Canada. The Canadian lighthouse is the subject of a restoration project by a number of volunteers who belong to the Nottawasaga Lighthouse Preservation Society (NLPS). For more information about them and that southern Georgian Bay lighthouse click on their website. Below, a giraffe made of Lego!

Don't let a rainy day in Athens dampen your enthusiasm for having a good time. On such a day, it's perfect to couple a shopping trip with a dining excursion if you make your destination The Mall in Athens. There, in what is a modern, multi-level facility, you will find a variety of sit-down, high-end restaurants and a large selection of food-court restaurants on an upper level in the mall.

The food court includes Everest. Like the mall, other restaurants we observed and the toilets at The Mall, Everest is spotlessly clean. We had tortillas at Everest, which were tasty and satisfied our hunger needs for under two Euros each. Coffees cost us 1.95 Euros each and our total invoice came in at under nine Euros.

To get to Everest at The Mall – the biggest mall in Athens – take a train to Neratziotissa station and you can easily walk from there.

On the Island of Poros, Greece.....

                        George and Nancy at the Oasis Tavern on the Island of Poros, Greece.

    Day-tripping guests from aboard the Anna II cruiseboat stopped at the Oasis Tavern on the island                of Poros and were treated to a multi-course lunch featuring Greek culinary treats!

    Aboard the Anna II, we got to see the sights offshore from Kinetta Beach Resort in Greece.

          More delicious treats, in photos above and below, at the Oasis Tavern on the Island of Poros.

             One of the starters, at the Oasis Tavern on Poros. We hope to get back there someday!

                           Approaching the Island of Poros, this view of the waterfront outside!

               More Greek treats shown in the photo above and the main course in the photo below.

  Watch for this sign (above) at the waterfront on the Island of Poros. A mandolin-playing musician                               serenades a guest at the Oasis Tavern on the Island of Poros.

   You name it, when it comes to Greek cuisine they probably have it at the Oasis Tavern on Poros.

  An outside view of the Oasis Tavern on the Island of Poros, above. And, below, a view from the                          restaurant toward the busy and beautiful waterfront at this Greek island.

 Some of the many guests from aboard the Anna II cruiseboat who enjoyed lunch at the Oasis Tavern.

 Oasis Tavern is just at very left in this photograph which shows the author at the Poros waterfront.

                   Scooters are a popular mode of transportation on the Island of Poros in Greece.

Oasis Taverna at the waterfront on the island of Poros, Greece.

Restaurteur Sakis Metsopolous is the owner of the Oasis Taverna on the island of Poros in Greece.

He's a smart man judging by the cheerful welcome he gave a group of tourists – including my wife Nancy and me – as we arrived from the cruiseboat Anna II at his restaurant. One of his smart moves, I think, is to have his business card printed in English on one side and in Greek on the other. That makes it easier to remember his restaurant. But the service and food are memorable too.

I'm positive that there are hundreds of waterfront restaurants in Greece, but Oasis Taverna sets the bar for quality service and excellent food very high. The view from the sidewalk cafe component of this restaurant is splendid. Ships pass this restaurant within a stone's throw of the Oasis Taverna.

Sakis Metsopolous and his staff made our group very welcome and as part of that was a multi-course lunch which had been arranged ahead of our arrival. At one point, as we dined, a mandolin-playing fellow wandered from table to table. The food, along with wine, was excellent. The multi-item lunch featured a selection of foods, including olives.

The price of our meal was included in the price of the cruiseboat day-trip, but I did photograph the Oasis Taverna's menu board and the prices seem reasonable to me.

One thing for certain, we would find Oasis Taverna to be (forgive us for this!) an oasis of fine hospitality and dining should we ever get back to the Island of Poros in Greece!

On a hillside in Piraeus, Greece....

    The Street Kitchen is a sidewalk café with ample indoor seating on a hillside in Piraeus, Greece.

                   Author George Czerny says these were the best French fries he has ever tasted!

                            Healthy salad dish at the Street Kitchen restaurant in Piraeus, Greece.

                              The menu at Street Kitchen is available in both Greek and English.

                                   A toast to our next holiday in Greece! This one was superb.

               The sidewalk café part of the Street Kitchen restaurant in Piraeus faces a busy street.

Tourist gems that you might not get told about -- except for here! -- are the "Olympias" boat (above) and the Hellenic Maritime Museum (entrance shown below). Both are located an easy walk from the Street Kitchen sidewalk café in Piraeus, Greece. It is important to check opening times for both of these attractions. The views from the hillsides in Piraeus are fantastic!

Street Kitchen restaurant in Piraeus, Greece.

The hills may be alive with music in Switzerland, but in Greece – specifically in Athens and Piraeus – the hills are alive with sidewalk cafes. One such cafe is called the Street Kitchen and it is on the shoreline, near the top of a hill, in the busy port of Piraeus.

Street Kitchen's take-out menu, was written in Greek for the menu items and had English words for categories....for example, starters, salad, sandwich, pasta, sweets, soft drinks and water. However, the menu at each table was available all in English. After that it was the helpful and friendly waitress who helped us to decide.

We ordered a salad with proscuttio and a sandwich (lettuce and tomato) with french fries. Hands down in the best-fries-in-the-world contest, these fries were the best I have ever had. They came crispy and brown and delicious! We had drinks along with our lunch.

As far as prices go, they were reasonable. Starters ranged about 5 to 6 Euros. Salads came in at 6 to 7 Euros each. Sandwiches were anywhere from 6.5 Euros to 10 Euros. Pasta could be purchased for between 5 Euros and 9 Euros, depending on what you had with it. Sweets, such as cheesecake, or brownies, came in at 5 Euros for either. Soft drinks cost 1.3 Euros and beer cost from 3 to 4.3 Euros each, depending on what you picked.

The Street Kitchen had an interesting location. It was off the beaten track in that it was not in the busy Piraeus downtown area. This restaurant is located on a busy street and had both a sidewalk tables arrangement outside and a spacious and clean table arrangement inside.

Outside, if you looked across the street, you could see the sea. If you walked across the street and looked over a low wall, you would get a better view. The Street Kitchen is within easy walking distance to the Hellenic Maritime Museum and nearby Olympias, which is an historic “triremes”, a long boat with almost 200 oars to propel it.

It you're a tourist, it's good to know that a friendly little restaurant exists at the waterfront in Piraeus.



On a rainy day, head for one of the museums in Athens.....

      On the way to the National Archaeological Museum in Athens on a rainy day. Dozens of people were waiting outside in a queue, which we joined, to get admission to this museum. We don't know if it was the rainy day adding to the museum's number of visitors, or a regular thing...but....the cafeteria at this museum is too small for the volume of visitors. Read on.....

Cafeteria at the The National Archaeological Museum, Athens, Greece.

If our experience at the cafeteria at the National Archaeological Museum is true of every person's visit, expect to encounter some very slow service at this small and crowded restaurant. Given the popularity of this museum, the crowds that flood to it and the opportunity to earn revenue, one would think this cafeteria would have been expanded years ago. But that is not the case.

The helpful staff is not to blame. They seem to grin and bear it as the queue of customers passes by a single cafeteria counter at a snail's pace. Of course, there is no other restaurant (that we know about) at this museum, so the patrons are a captive audience, so to speak.

We had a sandwich and a coffee, from a large selection of menu items, and it cost us 7.20 Euros. The food was fine and the selection adequate for varying tastes and budgets. But the wait to order, receive and pay for the food and drink was interminable. But that was one thing. The next challenge was to try to find a spot in the small seating area at which to eat and drink what you ordered. Remember, this is a museum and you couldn't take the food and drink outside the cafeteria space. We expect better from a world-class museum.

Avra is a one of the restaurants at Kinetta Beach Resort....

Avra dining room at the Kinetta Beach Resort in Kinetta, west of Athens, Greece, will exceed your expectations when it comes to Greek food, as well as excellent service from staff.

 Staff members flank guest Nancy from Canada at the Avra dining room at Kinetta Beach Resort. Marie, at left, and Sofia, at right, were just two of the many staff members who work diligently to ensure that guests....either from Air Transat, or the French-oriented Lookea Club, have an excellent time.

         Close-up on some souvlaki at the Avra dining room at the Kinetta Beach Resort in Greece.

     Souvlaki and calamari at the Avra dining room. The menu was varied and, in part, the restaurant                on a self-serve basis. When in Greece, do as the Greeks do. It was most enjoyable!

      Kinetta Beach Resort is located an hour's train ride from Athens. The beach is pebbly, but                                                      stretches east and west for kilometres!

    Anna II cruiseboat, shown here at dock on a Greek island, serves guests at the Kinetta Beach Resort in Greece. A day's excursion is highly recommended by author George Czerny who enjoyed a day-trip which took him and his wife Nancy to three islands... Agina, Poros and Agrissi. This vessel also traverses the Corinth canal. Anna II has an open-air deck on top, an enclosed deck on her main level, as well as toilets and a snack bar. In Greece, a boat cruise is a must-do for visitors from all over the world!

   Yiannis Panou is the Air Transat representative at Kinetta Beach Resort. His professionalism           
          shines, as does his multilingual ability to help guests feel at home. Thanks Yiannis!

Restaurants manager at Kinetta Beach Resort is Yiannis Constantopoulos. He's the friendly face guests meet when they come to the waterfront dining room for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. Above, author George Czerny thanks Mr. Constantopoulos for his fine service.

   Kinetta Beach stretches on for kilometres and is composed of small pebbles. The beach is an interesting place to walk and explore and just inland there is a highway which runs parallel to this beach. Along that highway is the village of Kinetta which features a number of shops, including one which sells solar-powered items such as water heaters. Kinetta Beach Resort is long-established on this stretch of beach which is about an hour's high-speed train ride west of Athens, Greece.

    A view of Kinetta Beach Resort looking inland. It's about a kilometer from this resort to the Kinetta train station where you can take a high-speed train to Athens, or to Corinth. To Athens takes about an hour and to Corinth about 15 minutes. On the way to Corinth, the train crosses a bridge over the historic Corinth canal.

                 The beautiful tree at right is poolside at the quiet pool at Kinetta Beach Resort.

   Greece is a photographer's dream at almost every turn. This photograph was taken offshore from Kinetta Beach Resort from aboard the cruiseboat Anna II.