Not a Myth: Athens is Booming with Culture Again
The Salon de Bricolage in Athens features an intimate restaurant where guests can enjoy an eclectic international menu. (Courtesy: Salon de Bricolage)
On a Tuesday evening in Athens, the ground floor lounge of the Salon de Bricolage, the city’s first membership club, was comfortably packed with a mix of collectors, artists, politicians, and journalists for an opening show of the rising Greek artist Georgia Sagri. Wearing a bob and a tailored striped man’s shirt, the pixie-esque Sagri posed for pictures and darted from one group to the next.
Meanwhile upstairs, at the salon’s intimate restaurant, members and friends filled the dozen small tables and ordered sushi from the eclectic international menu. In such exclusive surroundings, it would have been easy to forget that Greece was still going through a crushing economic crisis. Except that it was frequently the topic of conversation.
“A few years ago it seemed everyone was sitting around waiting for things to happen,” says Chrysanthos Panas, co-owner with his brother Spyros of Salon de Bricolage and the legendary Island beach club located on the Athenian Riviera about 30 minutes from town. “These days people are taking initiative and making things happen.”
Sometimes, despite, or perhaps because of crisis, new life and innovation blooms. Take ReMap, a new art event which, every two years, transforms the gritty, long-avoided Kerameikos-Metaxourgeio neighborhood into an open-air art happening. For years, more than 40 percent of the area’s buildings have been abandoned and left to decay. But these days, cutting-edge galleries like Breeder and upscale restaurants like the fish-focused Michelin-starred Varoulko share space with Chinese shops and crumbling historical residences. The next ReMap is in 2015, which is around the time that the Athens art scene will reach a tipping point when the new home of the National Museum of Contemporary Art, a renovated old brewery originally designed by the modernist architect Takis Zenetos near the Acropolis, finally opens.
A Jannis Varelas exhibit at Breeder gallery. (Photo: The Breeder, Athens)
The area around Agia Irini Square, named after one of the city’s oldest churches, is also starting to boom. Lined with terrace-fronted spaces, the square is packed with a young crowd, while along adjacent Aiolou Street, new culinary hangouts seem to appear every month. It may be that Greece’s small artisanal food businesses are doing almost a swifter business than the fledgling IT scene. “We’ve only got our roots left to sell,” laughs celebrity chef Dimitris Skarmoutsos, one of the key players in Ergon, a café which also just opened a London outpost and that produces all their own deli products. “Literally, everyone is starting an olive oil or marmelade company.” Popular new restaurants and cafes like Mana’s Kuzina-Kuzina and Nice-N-Easy are sourcing primarily organic products grown by small Greek farmers.
(See also: We Are Obsessed With This Art Exhibit causing Global Panda-monium!)
There’s been a sort of backward immigration going on lately, with Americans of Greek heritage moving to the city to build something small. Andria Mitsakos, a Greek-American accessories designer and owner of her own public relations firm who previously lived in Miami, is one. She started Dea Rosa — luxury handbags produced by traditional leather workers in Athens about two years ago, and already she is selling her well-priced python clutches and double-sided evening bags all over Europe.
“Instead of buying foreign designers, Greeks are buying local, giving chances to new young designers,” she explains. Stores like Manolo Blahnik have closed while local up-and-coming designers like Dimitris Petrou have opened up ateliers. “One of the positive sides of the crisis has been that people who lost their jobs came together to create new business ventures collectively,” said Costas Voyatzis, founder of the influential Athens-based design website Yatzer. “In Greece we have often been for ourselves and haven’t shared things. That has now changed. People are coming together to make amazing things happen.”
Where to stay
New Hotel
Owned by the world-renowned art collector Dakis Joannou and smartly designed by the quirky Brazilian designer Campana brothers, the New Hotel is the city’s coolest upscale design property, with 79 rooms (including seven suites) and an intimate restaurant which on Sundays hosts the city’s buzziest brunch scene. From $172; designhotels.com.
(Courtesy: New Hotel)
King George
After extensive renovations completed last year, the King George has just the right mix of Old European grandeur with modern facilities and 102 rooms. Located next door to the legendary Grande Bretagne on Syntagma Square, King George guests are allowed to use its expansive spa. From $251; luxurycollection.com.
Take in the Acropolis poolside at the King George hotel. (Photo: The Luxury Collection)
Where to eat
Osterman
This new restaurant on Agia Eirini Square is the Balthazar of Athens, with bistro-styled interiors, an upscale comfort food menu, and a buzzy vibrant atmosphere. osterman.gr
Ergon
A cafe and deli in one where you can try Greek dishes and then buy the ingredients to take home with you. ergonproducts.gr
Funky Gourmet
Recently awarded its second star, this small, ambitious kitchen headed up by a young couple serves dishes that are as cutting edge and pioneering as the neighborhood it’s in, the gritty Kerameikos-Metaxourgeio district. funkygourmet.com
Nice-N-Easy
With the looks of a Hollywood-style diner but using ingredients from some of the best organic farmers in Greece, the name is a bit goofy, but Nice-N-Easy serves the kind of smart healthy food you’d want to eat every day. niceneasy.gr
Mama Roux
With communal tables and mosaiced floors, this modern bistro is ideal for brunch (they serve it all day long) or lunch. At night they often feature a special menu: one night it might be 5 euro burritos and another night it might celebrate New Orleans with live music to match.
The Island
The sprawling location perched on a cliff over the sea is divided into several outdoor event spaces surrounded by blooming trees that include an excellent restaurant and dance floor. Valentino was so impressed when he stopped by a summer ago that he stayed a few extra days. Open from May to September; islandclubrestaurant.gr.
Varoulko
Chef Lefteris Lazarou was one of the first in Greece to win a Michelin star for a fish restaurant. This is a much-beloved favorite restaurant of many Athens insiders who love the fish dishes, like kritharoto — a Greek risotto with crayfish. Ask for a seat on the terrace, which has views of the Acropolis. varoulko.gr
Where to shop
Dimitris Petrou
The young socialites of Athens love Dimitris Petrou, a young and upcoming talent with his own atelier in Kolonaki. For nights out there are pretty lace or silk gowns embellished with fabric flowers and for day to day he makes beautiful womenswear with a menswear touch. By appointment only.
Mageia
Owned by the jewelry designer Ileana Makri, who is famous for her evil-eye rings and pendants made from precious stones, this stylish Kolonaki boutique features both accessories and well edited fashion pieces from local brands like Dea Rosa and cultish international designers like Rick Owens. ileanamakri.com
What to do
National museum of Contemporary Art
It’s been years in the making but finally it looks like the new home–a former brewery in the Kolonaki neighborhood — for the National Museum of Contemporary Art is opening by fall. emst.gr
Museum of Acropolis
It’s not easy to compete with the iconic architecture of the Acropolis, which looks down at the site of this museum from high, but this five-year-old museum has done an excellent job of it. With its transparent floors that look down over the archaeological site it is built upon, and mostly glass walls that taken in its historic surroundings, the Museum of the Acropolis is a stunning showcase for the ruins of one of the world’s most important monuments. theacropolismuseum.gr
Breeder
Located in a renovated ice cream factory, this white cube without windows located within Athen’s gritty but quickly gentrifying red light district, Breeder is one of most respected contemporary art galleries in the country. thebreedersystem.com
More from New York Post
8 amazing rooftop bars in London
