Athens has so many restaurants nowadays, but does it have good ones? Without a doubt. Does it have enough decent restaurants? No. I think we need to dispel the myth: There’s only a small number of good restaurants in what is a small market.
Where you have 10 new restaurants that pay attention to what they serve, dozens more prefer to invest in tiles, design and image instead of the star feature, the food. And many, many more are – to put it simply – trash, the kind of tourist traps that are packed into every historical city. But am I wrong to believe that Athens has more than its fair share of the latter?
If we take a walk around Athens’ neighborhoods, really paying attention, exploring beyond the places we know and choose for our outings, I think what we’ll see and experience will not be too far from the frenzy described in Marina Satti’s video for Greece’s Eurovision entry. But if we want to really get to know the food scene, we need to look at it as a whole, warts and all.
Don’t get me wrong, the sector has grown in leaps and bounds in recent years, but its progress still seems disproportionately meager compared to the evolution of tourism. The number of good restaurants in this city is way too small for the millions who visit Athens all year around. There are, of course, exceptions, which I hope are setting an example for future professionals in the industry.
Athens’ restaurant scene represents every global trend and fad, every concept. It is more varied and exuberant than ever, nothing is missing. Or is there? I think the locus is missing. A proud “Greekness.” Our national identity. What is the Athenian food scene? What is the Greek one, for that matter? How would we describe it? It seems disconnected from what every other food scene in the world is striving to showcase: a culinary identity that expresses its birthplace. Athens’ food scene seems to have turned its back on Greece’s products, its cultural identity and its culinary traditions. There are exceptions, of course, but they are few and far between. Only a handful of restaurants are actually making some kind of contribution to what could be a strong proposition. I repeat: We need to stop looking at the places we choose to go to, and see the bigger picture. And if we open the frame wider to include the country’s top destinations, well then…
But, you may argue, there has been a shift toward Greekness in recent years. More Greeks know more about the country’s local products, its recipes and its culinary traditions. Sure, but only to a certain extent. Varieties and breeds are becoming extinct, products are fading into obscurity and the dining sector is in a state of turmoil. And Greek consumers along with it. A food scene is the product of its society, after all.
Unfortunately, Greece’s agricultural and, by extension, its culinary heritage are slowly dying; domestic output keeps dropping and has been left without defenses. What is needed is a bold national agriculture and food policy that will connect the primary sector to the restaurant and tourism sectors. As professionals and consumers, we also need a robust desire to explore who we are.
Almost every second restaurant seems to be farm-to-table and zero-waste, but these sustainable practices are only being exploited for marketing purposes (with some exceptions) – a gyp of the highest order. There’s caviar and truffles all over the city, an abundance of products served out of season and sundry imports.
Seasonal Greek garden vegetables, pulses, olive oil, olives and feta, meanwhile, have become a sight for sore eyes. Feta, our national cheese, has gone out of vogue save for a few culinary Don Quixotes – and nothing is going to get better if feta doesn’t become the start again.
This article first appeared in Greek in Kathimerini’s Sunday supplement, K.
