On Hallowed Grounds
Savor the flavor of Athens’ thriving café culture
Sofia always appears seemingly out of the blue. She’s an old friend from Athens who now lives in Amsterdam. Like many expat Greeks — or hyphenated Greek-somethings like me — she makes the annual pilgrimage home for the summer holidays and, once the family duties are done, scrolls through her mobile phonebook.
Café patrons watch passersby on Tsakalof Street in the Kolonaki neighborhood
“Are you in Greece?” she asks.
“We have to get together for a coffee.”
The next day, a Saturday, I find myself walking with Sofia through downtown Athens. We are making our way toward Monastiráki, the bustling market neighborhood that borders Plaka on one side and the ancient Agora on the other.
We’re not alone. It seems as if all of Athens is here, strolling through the markets, milling in the little squares, and crowding the tables of the many sidewalk cafés. Young, slick-haired teenagers in black Dolce & Gabbana T-shirts buzz around. A hunched elderly couple saunters by; she clutches his arm, and he twirls his kombolói, or worry beads, behind his back. Sunburned Canadians with house-sized backpacks slam their hiking boots down on the pavement on their way up to the Acropolis.
Delivery trays are used to bring coffee to nearby businesses.
On Adrianou Street, we try to find a spot at one of the numerous cafés, but they are all full, their tabletops loaded with cups and glasses of every shape. The scene represents a cross-section of Athenian society. Beautiful couples wearing oversized sunglasses, with faces resembling the ancient statues in the National Archaeological Museum of Athens, whisper conspiratorially. Middle-aged women rest their feet amid a pile of shopping bags.
Next to them, a white-bearded Orthodox priest, his hair tied back in a bun, sits with his wife. A large family, with four generations represented, huddles around a table intended for four people. They alternate between laughing and disciplining the kids. The number of people is impressive. And everyone watches everyone else.
Finally, a table opens at To Kouti, one of our favorite cafés. The name means “the box,” and we like it because of the vaguely off-kilter vibe and the young bohemian waitstaff, who are always more playful than the stiff, all-business servers at some of the cafés, in their white shirts and black pants. We sit side by side with our backs to the wall, so we can both watch the street. When the waitress comes over, Sofia orders an iced cappuccino while I take a frappé. “Metrio me ghala,” I tell the waitress — medium sweetness with milk.
Crowded cafés line Adrianou Street in Monastiráki
Frappé (pronounced frah-PEH), is the strong, foamy concoction Greeks drink in the summer like water. It’s instant coffee whipped into a froth and served over ice. When the sun is blazing, nothing else is as refreshing. And just ordering my first frappé marks the beginning of the season.
As I take a sip, Sofia leans back and exhales. We will linger here for the next few hours, nursing our drinks, talking, and watching the pedestrian traffic go by. We won’t rush. Greeks are, at heart, a waiting people. They understand that life is lived in the moments, when things just happen. Greece’s ancient culture seems to have endowed its citizens with an incredible level of patience. They wait until they are ready; then they go full bore. Until then, they are content simply to embrace the pleasures of doing nothing, together — a talent that seems to be in the Greek DNA. This is how Greeks connect and reconnect: doing nothing while having a coffee.
When I was a boy growing up here in the 1970s, Athens was basically a massive village, where watermelons were sold on the side of the street and the afternoon siesta was an inalienable right. Today, boosted by the European Union and its having hosted the 2004 Olympics, Athens is a buzzing metropolis of nearly 5 million, Europe’s eighth largest, and Athenians are trying to keep up with their counterparts in London, Frankfurt, and Madrid. Even the siesta is disappearing.
A waiter at Athineon Politeia, a popular café in the Thisseion neighborhood, prepares to serve glasses of frappé to patrons
A remaining vestige of modern Greece’s recent past is the country’s café culture. Relatively little known, it is actually more vibrant than France’s rich coffee tradition and even the Italian world of espresso bars and frothy cappuccinos. In fact, when Danesi, the Italian espresso company, chose to open its first café, it designed a sleek boîte not in Milan or Rome, but in Athens’ fashionable Kolonaki neighborhood.
Greece’s love affair with coffee has its roots in the old kafeneion, which is believed to trace its history back centuries, to the teahouses of Asia Minor. Twenty to 30 years ago, kafeneions were drab, characterless places where elderly men like my grandfather would spend afternoons playing backgammon and sipping bitter elliniko kafe, the Greek version of Turkish coffee. The kafeneions had bare wooden tables and usually an overhead fan that did little to relieve the stifling Mediterranean heat.
Over the past 15 years or so, as Athens has rushed into the modern age, the old-style kafeneion has mostly disappeared, replaced by the more upscale, loungey cafés. But you can still find a kafeneion here and there, in the grimy backstreets near Omonia Square or in little tucked-away neighborhoods like Kaisariani and Singroú-Fix where local men while away the hours watching soccer.
Bronze trays and brikis, small pots used to brew Greek coffee, for sale in a market shop
As the kafeneion has faded away, so has elliniko kafe. You can still order it in most cafés, and you can buy a briki, the stovetop pot used to make the beverage, in copper stores in Monastiráki. But the younger generations don’t really drink it anymore. In a city that’s embracing the 21st century, elliniko kafe connotes grandfathers, after all.
The undisputed champion of the Greek café menu is the deliciously addictive frappé. I’ve polished off three or four in an afternoon, which kept me wired all night long.
That’s actually a nice side benefit of this whole caffeine addiction. Athens is a nighttime city. Dinner doesn’t start until 10, at the earliest, and the bars in Psiri and the beachside nightclubs down in Vouliagmeni don’t get going until 2 a.m. You need something to keep the engine running, and coffee does the trick.
Luckily, you can fuel up virtually anywhere in Athens. The major café neighborhoods are Kolonaki, Thisseion, and Plaka. But there are also good cafés on Plateia Syntagma, the central square in front of the Greek Parliament. And the rooftop café at the Benaki Museum treats visitors and locals alike with its breathtaking view of the National Gardens.
I’ve been returning to Athens regularly ever since I left, 25 years ago. Over time, sad to say, the city’s antiquities have lost their thrill for me. They’re certainly still marvelous, and I always glance at the Parthenon when it comes into view as I’m driving up Singroú Avenue. But nowadays, like most Greeks, I’m more interested in modern Greece. So when friends come to visit me, I usually give them directions to the Acropolis and tell them to meet me in the Thisseion neighborhood for a coffee. Thisseion lies at the foot of the Hill of the Pnyx and has one of Athens’ best views of the Acropolis. The neighborhood is named for a nearby temple that stands in the western corner of the ancient Agora. Not too long ago, the neighborhood was run-down and considered to be on the wrong side of the Acropolis from the more heavily traveled tourist district of Plaka. But earlier this decade, just before the Olympics, the city turned the peripheral road around the Acropolis into a long, wide pedestrian way. The old neoclassical buildings were updated and rented out to cafés, and suddenly, Thisseion was a hot spot.
A café in the Thisseion neighborhood
The neighborhood’s focal point is the intersection of Akamantos Street, Irakleidon Street, and Apostolou Pavlou, a pedestrian way. Like many other Athens neighborhoods, Thisseion boasts a cluster of cafés, all adjoining each other. In the late afternoon, they fill up with locals out for the volta, a stroll roughly equivalent to the Italian passagiata. Young scenesters, gray-haired grandparents, and families stroll and relax for the simple pleasure of being with each other. Many flock to Flocafe, a local chain that has figured out the modern-day Greek café formula without making it feel formulaic. But the Athineon Politeia dominates the scene. The name has a double meaning of “Athenian government” and “Athenian behavior,” and the café spreads across the corner, with a row of tables on the sidewalk along Akamantos Street and a larger seating area across the street on the pedestrian way.
Here one day, I meet my friend Stewart, a young adventurer from Boston who’s doing the railroad whirlwind tour of Europe. He has just visited the Agora and he’s beat. But after I order him his first-ever frappé, his energy level spikes.
“Want to play?” he asks. Somewhere in his travels, he has picked up an insatiable appetite for the unofficial national game of Greece: backgammon.
“Sure,” I reply. Most cafés, even now, have a backgammon board somewhere, and the game has been known to inspire older Greek men to philosophize profoundly — or as profoundly as possible — on the nature of luck.
We play a few games, and our tournament runs to 2–2. Then Stewart catches a young boy watching us. “You want to play winner?” he asks.
I translate his question. The boy turns to his father, who nods in the Greek style — down on an angle in a way that sometimes resembles an American-style “no” head-shake. The boy repeats the gesture for us. Stewart wins our rubber match, and the boy then routs him 3–0. After the last victory, he says to Stewart, in English, “Thank you,” and walks back to his family’s table.
Koulouri and sugar doughnuts, common street food
Moments like this one are what make Athens feel like home to me, even though I now live in New York. They remind me that my Greekness is not just in my blood, but also in my ability to relate to the Athenians on their terms. To do what they do. To join them. Sitting at a café remains the best way to get to know Athens and all its citizens — the regular Athenians and the celebrities that add a little something to people-watching in Kolonaki. This is the city’s ritziest neighborhood, where stylish Athenians wander in and out of high-fashion boutiques, expensive shoe stores, and glittery jewelry shops. On Tsakalof Street, the cafés exude a sense of exclusivity and take on the added intrigue of possible celebrity sightings. Over the years, I’ve seen the composer Mikis Theodorakis, the singer Elli Kokkinou, and several of Greece’s professional soccer players.
Kolonaki is home to the two best-known cafés in Athens: Café de Capo and Peros, located at Number 1 Tsakaloff and Number 7 Kolanaki Square, respectively. At these spots, the powerful and the beautiful mingle and gossip in a no-holds-barred, see-and-be-seen atmosphere. But at the same time, the cappuccinos at de Capo are by all accounts the best in the city. And locals talk about the frappés at Peros in exalted tones.
Scenes aren’t my thing, but early on a Saturday evening, I settle into a seat at Peros. All around me, Athens thrives, in anticipation of a long, fun night. The waiter takes my order, and as I sit back and wait for my frappé — metrio me ghala, of course — I feel more at home than ever.
— Greg Lalas
Getting There: Continental will offer daily nonstop service to Athens from its hub in New York/Newark starting June 7.
Drinking It In
Where to Sip
For a good cup of coffee or frappé, try one of these cafés.
To Kouti, Adrianou 23, Monastiráki, 210.321.3229
Danesi Coffee House, Skoufa 37, Kolonaki, 210.361.3823
Flocafe, Apostolou Pavlou, Thisseion; various other locations
Athineon Politeia, Akamantos 1, Thisseion, 210.341.3795
Café de Capo, Tsakalof 1, Kolonaki, 210.243.3902
Peros, Kolonaki Square 7, Kolonaki, 210.364.5068
Where to Stay
Hotel Grande Bretagne
When it comes to Athens hotels, the 133-year-old Grande Bretagne is, well, the grande dame. Centrally located, right on Constitution Square, it exudes old-world luxury, from the ornate marble lobby to the rooftop garden bar overlooking the city and the Acropolis. More than 320 rooms and suites boast the finest linens and furniture, the latest high tech facilities, and restored antiques. High-end suites include a personal butler, and the new Royal Suite comes complete with a private sauna, gym, dining room, and open fireplace. The hotel also offers an indoor and outdoor pool, as well as the GB Spa, which features a variety of beauty and wellness treatments. Constitution Square, 210.333.0000; grandebretagne.gr
Cleaving to the side of Lycabettus Hill, St. George Lycabettus Hotel offers a lush oasis amid Athens’ hard gray concrete. Again, there are the requisite decadent rooms, on-site spa, and gourmet restaurant with views of the Acropolis, but this boutique hotel is more about the scene, with its clientele of celebrities, CEOs, and tourists. Kleomenous Street 2, 210.729.0711.19; sglycabettus.gr
Even more intimate is the Magna Grecia Boutique Hotel, a lovely little inn housed in an 1898 neoclassical building typical of the Plaka neighborhood. The hotel is notable for its high ceilings and wooden floors tinted with original paintings. Mitropoleos 54, Plaka, 210.324.0314.5; magnagreciahotel.com
Where to Dine
Contrary to popular belief, Greek food is more than just soupy moussaka and sloppy gyros. In the Thisseion neighborhod, Filoistron’s impressive menu of mezedes (Greek tapas), such as homemade rye bread with fresh tomato, feta cheese, and olives, goes well with a carafe of limnós — a local white wine — and the breathtaking view of the Acropolis. Apostolou Pavlou 23, Thisseion, 210.342.2897; filoistron.gr
Situated in Eleftherias Park, To Parko is a local legend. The menu offers both international cuisine, such as curry chicken, and modified Greek traditions like lamb with cheese. Eleftherias Park (Vas. Sofia), 210.722.3784; toparko.gr
— G.L.
