Our Time in Athens, Part IV (Restaurants and Observations)

Trip Report: Athens and a Mediterranean Cruise
Lounge Reviews: The Club CLT and Centurion Lounge Charlotte Airport
Flight Review: Lufthansa A340-600 Charlotte-Munich
Lodging Review: Academias Hotel, Autograph Collection, Athens
Our Time in Athens, Part I (Acropolis and Museum)
Our Time in Athens, Part II (Roman Agora, Hadrian’s Library, Ancient Agora)
Our Time in Athens, Part III (Kerameikos, Temple of Zeus, Panathenaic Stadium)
Our Time in Athens, Part IV (Restaurants and Observations)
Ship Review: Viking Neptune
Our Time in Ancient Olympia (Katakalon, Greece)
Our Time in Corfu, Greece
Our Time in Kotor, Montenegro
Our Time in Dubrovnik, Croatia
Our Time in Zadar, Croatia
Our Time in Venice, Italy
Flight Review: Iberia A330-300 Madrid-Chicago

Restaurants

When my friend and I travel together we’re not always looking for “the best meal”. Rather, we love finding places frequented by locals which are sometimes off the beaten path. That doesn’t mean we don’t occasionally stop in at places that typically serve tourists; after all, that’s what we are! But often times we’ve found those places don’t have the best food and/or don’t give the best bang for your buck.

Case in point: our hotel offered a breakfast buffet. While I am currently a Lifetime Silver (Marriott’s lowest-level elite) and have Gold status this year (thanks to my Amex Platinum card), breakfast is not complementary at either level. The breakfast buffet at the hotel was €25. I’ve always been someone who loves and needs breakfast but there’s no way I’m going to pay that much, especially three days in a row. Instead, my friend and I went to the local grocery store and stocked up on enough fruit and yogurt to last us for a couple of days and decided to eat at a local cafe on our final morning in town.

For our dinners we mostly used Google Maps to locate restaurants near us. We’d find a few that looked interesting and then walk over and check them out in person before actually dining.

Meat N Roses

After getting settled into our hotel, this is where we dined our first evening. It’s a very small place with the tables actually in a pedestrian alley between two sections of the building. It was traditional Greek food with a twist and very reasonably-priced. Definitely recommend. Open noon-1 AM every day.

Meat N Roses, Amerikis 7, Athens 106 72

Acropolis Museum

There are actually two places to eat in the Acropolis Museum. The Café is on the ground floor and you don’t need to have a ticket to the museum to dine here. They do serve hot dishes but it’s also a place for soft drinks, a dessert or an afternoon cocktail. Hours vary seasonally.

The Restaurant is on the second floor near the gift shop and is much larger. There is indoor seating as well as a covered outdoor patio with fantastic views of the Acropolis. Hours vary seasonally but it is always open until midnight on Friday and Saturday nights and I’m sure the Acropolis view is stunning with the lights on. The food isn’t particularly special but it was convenient as we wrapped up our Acropolis-area visit and the weather was perfect to sit outside and enjoy.

Acropolis Museum Restaurant, Dinoysiou Areopagitou 15, Athens 11742

Nice N Easy

We selected this restaurant as it was near our hotel but we would definitely recommend visiting even if it’s a bit of a hike from where you’re staying. The restaurant features organic food almost exclusively sourced from Greek producers. If you’re not in Athens, you can visit their other location on Mykonos. The dishes are all named after movie stars which seems a little strange but the food is so good you forget about that. I had the Sean Connery, which was salmon with a soy orange glaze, quinoa, parsnip emulsion, mango and avacado. Quite good and reasonably priced!

nice n easy, Omirou 60, Athens 10672

Salaounis Christos

This is a restaurant in the heavily-touristed area between Hadrian’s Arch/Temple of Zeus and the Acropolis. There are several of these establishments that have covered outdoor seating as well as indoor seating. They’re tucked in between souvenir shops, pharmacies and the like. As you might expect, the food was not exceptional and, if I recall correctly, the souvlakia I had was a bit dry. We ate here more because it was convenient and we were ready to get off our feet for awhile rather than because it was recommended. They don’t seem to have a website or much of an online presence at all.

Salaounis Christos, Dionysiou Areopagitou 7, Athens 11742

Frankie

As we left Nice N Easy the previous night, we noticed the menu for its neighbor, Frankie, and decided to eat there the next night. Frankie advertises itself as a Farm to Table Italian Bistro and Bar. They have a few beef, fish and chicken dishes but obviously concentrate on pasta and pizza. I had a pizza that was quite tasty and very filling. Very good and easy on the wallet. The founders of Frankie also founded Nice N Easy and they also have a location on Mykonos.

Frankie, Skoufa 42, Athens 10672

Paul

Although we were not aware of it, Paul is a bakery/boulangerie chain with locations around the world. We visited the location on Panepistimiou Street near our hotel. They are known for their pastries and my goodness did they look wonderful. I managed to control myself and went for a cup of tea and a granola parfait instead. I had no idea how huge it would be! The location we visited had only a handful of tables inside and another half-dozen tables outside in the pedestrian alley within the building. Service was not exactly swift but it was our final morning in Athens and we had nowhere to be so that was fine. We did manage to luck out and arrive between waves of people. I assume it had been busy earlier as locals were on their way to work but after we’d ordered, business picked up again, this time with tourists and moms with small children. Even though it’s a chain we’d still recommend this place too.

Paul, Athens Center, 10 Panepistimiou Street, Athens 10671

Cadillac Burgers

We walked around aimlessly for the rest of our final morning, window shopping and just generally exploring. When it came time for lunch we once again looked to Google Maps. When I ran across the name “Cadillac Burgers” it intruiged me enough to want to check it out. It turned out to be a tiny little place in a pedestrian alley in the Plaka area. There’s no indoor seating and there were about 4 small round tables, some with 2 chairs, some with 4. There were only 1 or 2 folks working and service wasn’t super-fast but again, we were not in a hurry so that was fine. The burger was pretty good and it was nice to have a taste of home. I wouldn’t go across town for the food but if you’re nearby it’s a solid choice, especially if you have kids or picky eaters in your group.

Cadillac Burgers, Mnisikleous 4 Mitropoleos, Plateia Mitropolis, Athens 105 58

Observations

If you’re going to play tourist in Athens, be sure you’ve got good walking shoes, sunscreen and water. While the Metro can definitely help, a lot of the main tourist sites require a good bit of walking over uneven ground, which is understandable when you’re dealing with 2500-year-old sites! While at many of these sites there is very little or no shade so if you’re there on a hot day, just be sure you’re prepared. Apparently Athens was a very popular place for tourists this year and the photos I saw from the summer showed tons of people everywhere. During our trip in October it wasn’t nearly as crowded and we never saw any lines that made us decide not to visit something. In fact, most of the time there was little-to-no line at all.

Unlike some places I’ve visited in Europe there was no issue with credit card acceptance and none of the place we ate had issues splitting the bill between us.

The Metro can be great for getting around and to/from the airport. We had originally planned to even take the Metro to the Port of Piraeus, where our ship was docked. But after sweating so much going from the Metro to the hotel, we decided we didn’t want to arrive sweaty at our ship and decided to spring for a taxi. One thing great about taxis in Athens is that you can use the Uber app to hail and pay for them. It was about €35 plus tip from our hotel to the port. Once we arrived we were doubly-glad we’d chosen a taxi as we had no idea where the closest metro station was and we weren’t even 100% sure which slip our ship would be! The taxi driver had a fair idea and we ended up going directly to the correct spot.

In the end

We had a marvelous time in Athens. It was plenty warm, even in mid-October (in fact, we wouldn’t have minded at all if it had been a few degrees cooler) and we enjoyed ourselves immensely. If you’ve never been, be sure to add it to your bucket list! And this was just the kickoff for our cruise!