Trendy restaurants in Athens, Greece

Three filters did the work: Opened in the last eighteen months, recognised by Michelin or 50 Best in the last two cycles or covered in the local food press through 2025 and into 2026 with the kind of sustained attention that signals a room is still hard to book, not just briefly buzzy.

That keeps a lot of perfectly fine restaurants off the page. Plaka tavernas with a chalkboard in five languages. Older tasting rooms whose press cycle peaked in 2019. The mall food courts of the airport extension. Trendy in Athens in 2026 is a real category, with its own postal codes and its own chef genealogies, and it does not include souvlaki for tourists who happen to be passing.

1. Lalane

Spring 2026. Ground floor of The Fiction Athens, a new five-star boutique on Kifisias Avenue. The chef is Alexandros Tsiotinis, the same Michelin-starred name behind CTC, which puts the kitchen one of the strongest brasserie pedigrees in the city. The menu runs sideways through expectation. Fava-bean tacos, with smoked eel and grilled-kumquat cream. Beef tartare hidden under grilled cabbage with a fried yolk on top. Paella-style pappardelles. A ribeye sauced in café de Paris butter. The room reads dark wood and warm-toned, the bar lights up under DJ sets on Fridays and Saturdays, and there is a courtyard garden behind the building that should expand the seat count significantly once it fully opens. Microbakery residencies rotate through; Temps Perdu came first.

2. Plyta

Pangrati again. Late 2025. Four chefs decided to cook in the same building: Periklis Koskinas, Giannis Loukakis, Marios Korovesis, Spyros Pediaditakis. Two of them already run Akra. One of them runs Cookoovaya. The room is small, mosaic-floored, marble-topped, framed in metal around an open kitchen. The price is the talking point. Most plates land around eight euros. Mains run fifteen to nineteen. The food is grill-driven, daily-rotating, and as honest as anything in Athens. Open from 17:00 daily, with weekend lunch from noon at Amvrosiou Plyta 1-3.

3. Anthes

Skoufa Street, central Athens. The room opened in late 2024 and has just passed its first anniversary, which in Athens means the kitchen has had time to settle. The name is an anagram of "Athens" and the menu reads accordingly: Greek bones, Japanese-trained techniques, French references where the dish needs them. Executive chef Hippocrates Anagnostelis comes from Kensho Mykonos and Crios Paros. Konstantina Panagiotopoulou runs the open kitchen day to day. Order the smoked taramas with leek, the gyozas stuffed with Greek sausage, the cauliflower bites with white-chocolate cream or the grouper carrying scallion and smoked eggplant. The bar programme by Thanos Tsekouras drinks like its own tasting menu, the Midnight Sun cocktail in particular. House DJ sets play on busy nights. The space tunnels through three levels with an indoor "garden" tucked behind the wine cellar.

4. Atlas

Ano Kypseli, late August 2025. A leafy corner, earthy interior, marble counter at the bar and terrazzo accents. The first weekend Atlas was open the queue ran down the block. The menu reads meze with island bias. Tomato salad that lets the local produce talk. Tomato fritters with Cycladic flavor. A slow-braised beef stew tender enough to drag through with thick slices of pastry puff. The wine list is short and small-producer-focused. Cocktails stay light. The crowd skews young, weekend-tanned. Lunch is the move on Sundays.

5. Anther

Inside the Perianth Hotel (a Design Hotels member with a sense of itself), on what the locals call the "flower square." Anther opened in early 2025 and immediately did something most new restaurants cannot: shifted from the design press to the food press. Chef Nasos Tsironikos came from Milos, the Greek seafood institution with rooms in Athens and New York. The dining room is anchored by a circular terrazzo bar. The plates are custom porcelain hand-painted by Valinia Svoronou with delicate blue line drawings. The uniforms are by Greek designer Angelos Bratis. A two-wall mural by Eleni Bagaki called "Blossoms Blossoming" wraps around the room and reads like Minoan frescoes for the smartphone era. The food deserves the same attention: Egg Staka Butter is a Cretan-classic riff that is rich without being heavy, and the Oxtail Giouvetsi proves that a slow-cooked Greek staple can also be luxurious.

6. Iodio

Late 2024, Kolonaki. Georgianna Hiliadaki, Greece's only two-Michelin-star female chef, opened it with Erasmia Balaska, and the room booked out within weeks of opening. The food is seafood-precise. Sea urchin pasta. Bottarga paired with white chocolate. Fish coming in daily from Kalymnos and Leros. The dining room is bright, marble-topped, polished without trying too hard, which is what Kolonaki looks like when it is at its best. Reservation lead time runs one to two weeks for weekend dinner.

7. Ex Machina

Pangrati. 2024 into 2025. Chef Adam Kontovas blends Greek produce with Middle Eastern roots and Asian technique, and the kitchen reads industrial-warm with an open pass. The dish people talk about is "orphan pasta": thick macaroni in a broth made from kumquat, bones, and leftover fish. Zero-waste cooking has been a global trend for ten years; Kontovas has made one of the few zero-waste dishes that an Athens diner orders for taste before sustainability.

8. Yphes

Ktena Street, central Athens, next to the five-star Emerald Hotel. Yphes opened in 2025 and has built a buzz disproportionate to its quiet block. The room reads Viennese-style seating with green tile accents and a leafy outdoor walkway that runs heated through winter. The food is clean Mediterranean with creative seasonal pulls. Citrus-tinged dressings. Slow-cooked meats. Forest-mushroom plates in autumn. Burrata done properly. Lighting kept on the soft side, music kept on the conversational side. It is the kind of opening that takes the obvious slot in any 2025 Athens shortlist.

The layer below the brand-new is the layer that earned its way to the Guide. Six tasting rooms, two terraces, and three à la carte names round out the modernist canon. None of these are 2019 picks resting on momentum. All of them keep evolving.

Makris Athens

Petros Dimas won his Michelin star in 2024 at the foot of the Parthenon. The building was Greece's first inn. The dining room has a glass floor, which means you eat above the original archaeology. Three tasting menus run: Genesis, Utopia, and the vegetarian Physis Vegan. The wine list breaks 300 labels. Herbs come daily from the family farm. The mushroom "cappuccino" is the talking point on Genesis. The red shrimp arrives with caviar from Epirus. The pastry programme is its own argument.

CTC Urban Gastronomy

Alexandros Tsiotinis won his star in 2023, in the courtyard of a 1950s-era neoclassical block in the centre. The signature menu is CTC Voyage. Eleven courses, blind. The diner gets the dish before the name. There is corn soup flavoured with lobster on rotation; an avocado dessert too, depending on the season. Service moves like choreography in a small enough room that every seat is effectively a chef's table.

Soil

Pangrati again, neoclassical mansion, two blocks from the Panathenaic Stadium. Tasos Mantis runs a single tasting menu, full stop. The kitchen has held a Michelin star plus a Green Star for as long as the Green Star programme has been in Athens. Mantis trained at The Fat Duck, Geranium, and Hof Van Cleve before he turned the family farm in Alepochori into the restaurant's herb library. The signature squid course arrives as a thinly sliced hemisphere with basil, fennel pollen, and micro flowers. The melon dessert comes in a hollow ceramic shaped like the fruit itself.

Delta

Two Michelin stars and a Green Star, on the fifth floor of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Centre. Designed-bronze bar. Suspended dreamlike trees. A view across to the Saronic Gulf. George Papazacharias runs a single twelve-course menu called Omnivore, with ingredients almost entirely sourced from the restaurant's farm in Mesogeia. A wild sea-buckthorn course with burnt butter and fermented seeds gets plated to look like a poppy. The wine pairing covers two cellars, with a strong Adriatic spine. Booking lead time is the longest in Athens.

Spondi

Athens's longest-tenured Michelin star, since 2002. Pyrronos 5, behind the Panathenaic Stadium. Vaulted dining rooms, two Mediterranean-style terraces, a candlelit-courtyard atmosphere that still drives a portion of the bookings. Cooking is contemporary French. The Discovery tasting menu sits alongside a long à la carte. Crab, langoustine, lamb, and chocolate recur seasonally. Service is the most attentive in the city. The wine cellar has been deep for two decades.

Akra

A Michelin Bib Gourmand on Aminta 12, Pangrati. The format is bar-cooking. Giannis Loukakis and Spyros Pediaditakis cook in front of the counter or at a wood-fired grill in the same room as the diners. The bakery at the front of the space scents the dining room as the day moves through. The menu rewrites daily. Reservations open at 19:00 and close around 23:00, with weekend evenings booked out roughly a week in advance.

The Zillers Rooftop Gastronomy

A Michelin star on Mitropoleos 54, opposite the cathedral, on the roof of the boutique hotel that takes its name from the same architect. Ernst Zillers came to Athens in the 19th century to design public buildings, fell in love, stayed. The dining room is only open in the evening. Chef Vasilis Roussos runs two tasting menus called Synecdoche and Synthesis. The Prawn Valley is the recurring dish that diners write home about: raw prawns, a delicate tomato sauce, bergamot, kumquat. The terrace looks across the Cathedral to the Acropolis.

Pelagos at Four Seasons Astir Palace

A Michelin star inside six months of opening, on the Athenian Riviera. Chef Luca Piscazzi runs three tasting menus (Discovery, Adventure, The Best Of). The signature Caviar Pasta is cold Setaro spaghetti with black tahini and tsukudani in an oyster-sauce reduction. The salt-crusted turbot for two is the bigger show. The terrace looks out over the Aegean. The hotel itself has been a luxury anchor on the coast since 1960. Booking the veranda is worth the call.

Okio

Mediterranean cooking with Asian fusion threads, Nikis 33 and Navarchou Nikodimou 3, Syntagma. Fourth consecutive year in the Michelin Guide as of 2024. Chef Panagiotis Giakalis (ranked #8 on the FNL "Chefs' Powerlist" 2011-2020) leads the kitchen, with George Tsolkas as head chef. The format is sharing-plate. The sourcing is local farmers, ethical fishermen, small-scale producers. Closed Sundays. Open 18:00 to 01:00 the rest of the week.

Simul

Ipsilantou 63, Pangrati. Michelin-listed without a star. Chef Nikos Thomas was once a MasterChef contender. Now he is one of Athens's most distinctive cooks. The room is informal. The à la carte rotates aggressively. The tasting menu carries the personality the room is known for. Closed Sunday and Monday. Saturday opens at 14:00 for lunch.

After a busy day of exploring ancient ruins and discovering others things to do in athens across the city center, there is no better way to recharge than dinner with a spectacular view. Here are a few standout terraces where the food is excellent and the Acropolis is the second course:

• Zale Rooftop at the Heritage Hill Hotel pairs modern Mediterranean with refined Asian-fusion touches under a glass-framed terrace. The Acropolis sits in the near foreground, not the distance.
• MS Roof Garden sits above Monastiraki at Athinas 1 and Ermou. Open daily from 09:00 to 03:00. Seasonal Greek plates plus a separate rooftop-bar programme that runs all the way to last call.
• The Botany at Acropolis is a roof garden behind a working herb garden. Modern Greek, sustainably sourced. Rated 4.6 stars on OpenTable across roughly a hundred reviews. The view runs across both the Acropolis and the Temple of Olympian Zeus.
• Thissio View sits at Apostolou Pavlou 25, with a 270-degree panorama covering the Acropolis, Lycabettus, the Agora, and Filopappou Hill in one sight line. Mediterranean-Greek plates, most under €30. Five-minute walk from Thissio metro.
• SENSE lives on the seventh floor of the AthensWas Hotel at Dionysiou Areopagitou 5. Many of the herbs in the kitchen grow on the same terrace as the dining room. Two tasting menus plus a vegetarian option.
• NYX Rooftop at the Academias Hotel (Autograph Collection) runs Japanese-fusion gastrobar from a 360-degree view of the city centre.
• Amphibian's rooftop bar opens in Q2 2026 and will become the most discussed Acropolis-adjacent terrace of the next cycle.

Athens dinner runs late. Most rooms open service from 19:30, but locals fill the seats between 21:00 and 22:00. Booking 20:00 gets a quieter experience. Booking 21:30 gets the buzz.

The hottest new openings (Lalane, Amphibian, Plyta, and Iodio especially) fill weekend dinner slots one to two weeks ahead. Weekday lunch is easier. OpenTable, TheFork, and the e-restaurants platform cover most of the modern rooms; the older Michelin-starred places take direct phone calls. A few of the smallest counter-format spots (Thirio, Akra) leave space for walk-ins outside peak hours, but it pays to call.

Tipping runs five to ten percent at sit-down restaurants. Service is usually included on the bill at fine-dining rooms, with a small round-up considered normal. Dress at starred spots leans smart-casual, never formal.