The Top 18 Restaurants in Athina
The best restaurants in Athina, by the professional record: Michelin Guide has weighed in, and their honors are what rank this list. Hervé comes out on top.
Hytra and Makris Athens hold the next two places.
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A digital code gets you through the front door, which sets the tone for what follows. Hervé is a Michelin-starred contemporary tasting-menu restaurant where a French chef folds French, Asian, and Italian ideas into a single, composed progression. Watch it come together from the counter, or take the patio when the weather cooperates. The tiled walls and natural stone keep things from feeling precious, even when the cooking clearly is.
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Rank 1. Hytra
Modern Greek
Hytra sits inside the garden of the Megaron Music Hall, with a balcony that puts the Acropolis and the Athenian sky directly in front of you. This Michelin-starred modern Greek restaurant grows its own herbs and uses them in everything, including the cocktails. The kitchen leans into fine textures and careful plating, with tasting menus alongside à la carte, one menu going fully vegetarian. Dressy, unhurried, and committed to the view.
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Rank 1. Makris Athens
Creative Greek
A glass floor panel reveals the ancient foundations of what was once Greece's first inn, which sets the tone for what follows at this Michelin-starred creative restaurant at the foot of the Acropolis. The chef draws from the restaurant's own farm and local producers for tasting menus named Genesis, Utopia, and the vegetarian Physis Vegan. Over 300 wine labels, plus cocktail and juice pairings, keep things occupied between courses.
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Before the meal begins, a small presentation of aromatic herbs arrives at the table, many grown by the chef's father. Soil is a single-tasting-menu restaurant with a Michelin star, where the cooking leans hard into Greek landscape and seasonality. You can sit at the chef's table, in the lounge, or in the year-round winter garden. Tasos Mantis finishes certain dishes tableside, and the drinks pairing runs from wine to fresh juices and low-alcohol options.
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Rank 1. Spondi
Contemporary French
Vaulted stone dining rooms and candlelit terraces a short walk from the ancient Panathenaic Stadium set the scene for contemporary French cooking that leans heavily on visual presentation. This is a formal, Michelin-starred restaurant with a tasting menu alongside à la carte, attentive service that the room practically insists upon, and a crowd dressed accordingly. Seasonal produce drives the menu, though certain luxury ingredients appear to have permanent residency.
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Rank 1. The Zillers Rooftop Gastronomy
Contemporary Greek
A Michelin-starred rooftop restaurant perched above the Greek Orthodox cathedral with the Acropolis hanging in the background, which is not a bad place to eat dinner. The kitchen runs two tasting menus of contemporary Greek cooking, creative without abandoning the traditions that make Greek food worth the creativity. The wine list leans Greek, the setting leans theatrical, and the evening-only hours keep it from feeling like a tourist lunch stop.
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Rank 7. Akra
Contemporary Greek
A wood-fired grill sits in full view of the counter seats, which means dinner comes with a front-row look at the chef doing actual work rather than a pass-through window. This small contemporary Greek spot in Pangrati bakes its own bread in ovens scattered around the room, so the smell gets you before the menu does. The daily-changing menu keeps things simple and seasonal, and the Michelin Guide has awarded it a Bib Gourmand.
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Rank 7. Cerdo Negro 1985
Mediterranean Fusion Spanish
Fire and smoke do the heavy lifting at this Mediterranean fusion spot near the Kerameikos archaeological site, where a Greek family's love of Spanish cooking shapes the menu. Set in an old house with a covered patio, it has the relaxed feel of a place run by people who actually want you there. The Michelin Guide awarded it a Bib Gourmand. À la carte or a six-course tasting menu, both roads lead somewhere interesting.
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Low-and-slow American barbecue in Athens, which is a sentence that takes a moment to process. Fine Mess Smokehouse is an informal spot where the chef, also behind a patisserie workshop called Lick the Spoon, applies serious technique to smoked meat. The Michelin Guide picked it up with a Bib Gourmand, and the menu runs from à la carte to a seasonal tasting menu with wine and old-fashioned cocktails alongside.
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Rank 7. Pharaoh
Greek
Every dish here is cooked over wood or charcoal, no modern appliances allowed, which gives the whole menu a smoky, unhurried quality. This Michelin Bib Gourmand taverna in Athens reworks Greek culinary traditions, think dolmadakia and slow-cooked lamb with handmade pasta, in a room that pairs industrial design with an open kitchen and a balcony. Come evening, a DJ spins vinyl, so book ahead if you'd rather not explain yourself to the door.
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Rank 11. Aleria
Greek
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Rank 11. DOLLI·S
Mediterranean
The open kitchen sits on the fifth floor of a converted mansion, with the Acropolis framed in the window like someone set it there on purpose. This hotel dining room blends Mediterranean and Asian cooking, plated with the kind of precision that makes you feel slightly underdressed. Evenings lean further into the tasting experience, and the wine list pulls from both established estates and smaller producers.
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Rank 11. Gallina
French
Marble tables, an open kitchen you can actually watch, and a wine list running past 800 labels set the tone at this Athens bistro, where the cooking blends French technique with Greek ingredients. Fish and seafood anchor the menu, with mature cuts for the meat-minded, and the raw red prawns from Koilada are the kind of thing regulars quietly plan their visit around. Art on the walls, serious food on the plate.
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Rank 11. Merceri
Contemporary Greek
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Rank 11. see|ds
Modern New American
A tasting-menu restaurant tucked into a residential neighborhood, see|ds takes its name from the chef's initials woven into the word itself, which tells you something about how personal the project is. The kitchen runs French-inflected modern cooking built on local seasonal produce, offered in two menus that differ only by length. Upstairs, a loft seats ten beside the wine cellar for a dinner that feels closer to someone's home than a restaurant.
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Rank 11. SENSE
Greek Mediterranean
The seventh floor puts the Acropolis at eye level, which is either a coincidence or the entire point of dining here. SENSE is a tasting-menu restaurant on top of the AthensWas Hotel, running two menus plus a vegetarian option built around Greek Mediterranean cooking with an international lean. Herbs from the rooftop garden make their way into the dishes, so the kitchen is, in a literal sense, eating its own homework.
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Rank 11. Vezené
Greek
Wood-fired everything is the organizing principle at Vezené, a bistro near the Evangelismos metro with an elegant glass porch and a kitchen that treats open flame as a philosophy rather than a technique. The menu moves through local seafood, aged meats, and pasta, with most of it passing through fire at some point. On weekends the kitchen puts out a generously portioned Sunday roast, family-style.