The Best Places in Plaka & around

A tree-lined urban terrace draws the summer crowd to this Michelin-starred modern Mediterranean restaurant in Athens, though the softly lit interior holds its own through cooler months. Chef Alexandros Tsiotinis runs an eleven-course tasting menu whose dishes are kept secret until each one arrives at the table, a theatrical touch that somehow avoids feeling gimmicky. The cooking leans on classical foundations and quietly pulls them apart.

1. Michelin Guide 1 Star
2. The 50 The 50 Discovery

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.

1. Michelin Guide 1 Star

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.

1. Michelin Guide 1 Star

Dinner on the seventh floor of the King George Hotel, with the Acropolis lit up across the rooftops and a pianist somewhere in the background, sets a scene that would feel theatrical if the food didn't hold its own. This fine dining restaurant earns a Michelin star through the chef's contemporary Greek cooking, a short à la carte and a tasting menu. The sommelier is quietly exceptional, the kind who reads the table before making a recommendation.

1. Michelin Guide 1 Star

A wood-fired oven anchors the menu at this contemporary Italian restaurant near the heart of central Athens, where the kitchen turns out handmade pastas alongside pizzas and meat dishes. The room spreads across three areas, including a terrace and a balcony good for cocktails when the evening cools. The kind of place that draws a broad crowd without trying too hard to please everyone, which is harder than it sounds.

1. 50 Top Pizza 50 Top Pizza Europe Excellent Pizzerias
2. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

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.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand

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.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand

Large windows flood this relaxed Athenian fusion restaurant with enough light to forgive the menu's ambition. The kitchen blends Greek ingredients with flavors from further afield, keeping the card short and focused rather than encyclopedic. A Michelin Bib Gourmand, it draws the kind of crowd that's happy to linger over a small, well-chosen meal without ceremony. Service matches the room: easy and attentive without hovering.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand
2. The 50 The 50 Discovery

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

Tucked into a narrow street in the historic centre, this sunny Mediterranean restaurant runs on seasonal Greek cooking from a chef whose menu shifts with the market and, apparently, his childhood memories. Soft tones, lots of natural light, and genuinely warm service give it the feel of somewhere a local would take you rather than somewhere you'd stumble into off a tourist map. There's a small bar for cocktails and a well-chosen list of Greek wines.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

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.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

A neo-Classical building in central Athens houses this Balkan restaurant, where the name loosely means "eat and treat" in Ancient Greek, which sets the tone. The Albanian-born chef pulls from his mother's recipes and pushes them somewhere more considered, landing on a menu that moves between lamb sweetbreads with yoghurt and rice, octopus in handmade filo, and grape-must desserts. Comfort food that has done some thinking about itself.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

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.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
2. The 50 The 50 Discovery

The Acropolis sits dead ahead from the eighth-floor terrace of this Mediterranean restaurant atop the Hotel Grande Bretagne, which means half the table will be ignoring you. The menu leans Italian in spirit, with pasta and risotto given their own corner of the card, and the kitchen keeps things seasonal without turning the whole thing into a lecture about it.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
2. The 50 The 50 Discovery

A corner restaurant steps from the Acropolis Museum that earns its sightseeing-crowd location by actually deserving it. The kitchen turns out contemporary Mediterranean cooking with a quiet lean toward Asia, so expect clean, precisely balanced plates and the occasional textural surprise. There's a lounge, a terrace for warmer evenings, and a private room upstairs when someone needs to organize a group dinner nobody else volunteered to plan.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

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.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

A plant-based cafe in central Athens that roasts its own single-origin coffee and keeps the pace at a low-grade sprint most of the morning. The weekly rotating dessert specials and lighter menu draw a crowd that moves through fast, so if you have questions for the barista, wait for a lull. The coffee program leans curious, the kind of place where leaving the choice to whoever is behind the bar tends to end in a pleasant surprise.

1. Sprudge The Sprudge Guide To Coffee In Athens, Greece

Ibrik coffee prepared in a bed of hot sand is the reason to stop at this old-school Athenian coffee shop near the Varvakios Central Market. They roast their own beans and pull espresso for anyone who prefers their coffee pre-wave, but the hovoli method, finely ground coffee heated in a small copper pot, is the thing. The room runs high-ceilinged and retro, with sidewalk tables pressed against the windows where the full noise of central Athens provides the ambiance.

1. Sprudge The Sprudge Guide To Coffee In Athens, Greece

The space used to be a cobbler shop, and the name stuck when the coffee took over. This graffiti-covered corner café in downtown Athens has an outdoor bench culture and a soundtrack loud enough to feel like a party, while inside the blenders and espresso machines run at full tilt. Beans come from a local Kallithea roaster known for milk-friendly blends, and the baked goods sell out fast enough that showing up early is not optional.

1. Sprudge The Sprudge Guide To Coffee In Athens, Greece

A multi-floor specialty coffee shop two minutes from Thiseo metro, close enough to the Acropolis that tourists occasionally stumble in looking for the path. Pull up a stool at the dedicated brew bar and the staff will happily get into water mineral content and extraction ratios without you having to ask twice. The team behind it has serious competition credentials, and the rotating pour-over menu leans toward naturals and washed African lots.

1. Sprudge The Sprudge Guide To Coffee In Athens, Greece