To Kafeneio: Another Plaka restaurant presentation

To Kafeneio

Address-Area: 1 Epiharmou St. [Plaka neighbourhood], Athens
Tel: 210-32.46.916
Last Visit: 2012-03-24
Cuisine: Greek, traditional with a twist
Overall opinion: Positive / neutral
Methods of payment: cash / credit; Visa, AmEx, Mastercard, Diners
Working hours: Open from 09:30 for coffee. Restaurant hours: 11:30am - 01:00am (call for reservation, esp. for Friday night or Saturday)
Website: www.tokafeneio.gr
Accessibility: Only the outdoor tables on the pedestrian street (it has a slight downward slope); WC only accessible by walking downstairs

Indicative order:
Eggplant rolls (bourekia melitzanas)
Grilled feta cheese (saganaki) sprinkled with honey
Mushrooms (manitaria tou oneirou)
Kavourmas (meat dish w/ tomato sauce)
Meatballs with red curry sauce (Keftedakia tou Nikou)
Chocolate Fruit Passion w/ strawberry 
Kormos sokolatas (chocolate with biscuit "mosaic")
1/2 litre of aged Agiorgitiko wine
Bread for 2
Price: 40.10Euros (around 20€/person, incl. dessert)

Presentation / Ambience: Housed in an old coffee-shop (hence the name “kafeneio”) built of stone and wood, with tables laid out at levels, in one small hall, indoors. Old wooden furniture and decorations create a folkloric atmosphere. Some extra lighting inside would have been welcome. There are about 6 tables outdoors, in the calm, sloping, pedestrian street. They don’t have much of a view, except for a peek-through at the Scholarhio tavern across the corner on the busy, pedestrian, Tripodon St.  

Overall it is an interesting case of a restaurant, not only for the architecture of the building and for serving as a coffee place in the mornings but also for its efforts in the food and wine department.

Beautiful table-top tile decoration, Kafeneio restaurant - Athens

Food / Drinks: Overall food quality is very good here and the chef does not seem to be afraid to stray a little from the standard Greek fare, although the restaurant is located in the heart of the country’s tourist zone. We love the Indian-influenced, red curry-sauce meatballs and the armyrikia greens which are really hard to find. We also liked the kavourmas dish which is a traditional combination of “cheap” cuts from (mainly) beef and lamb, made extra tasty by cooking in a red tomato sauce, sprinkled with grated feta cheese, parsley and spices. The chocolate fruit passion dessert was excellent (and I don’t even like strawberry!) but the “kormos sokolatas” and a cappuccino coffee (we’ve had it on a separate occasion) are the only unremarkable items we’ve come across here, in the otherwise excellent diners we’ve had.

The owners make an effort to incorporate organic ingredients in their kitchen.

Wine-wise, this is one of the few tavern-restaurants that seem to actually care about wine, offering several options of wine in the carafe, with the name of each chateau / variety displayed in the menu, instead of the generic “house wine” label found elsewhere. They also age some barrels of wine in their own cellar and there’s a small number of interesting, Greek wine bottles.

Unfortunately, they don’t seem to hold the same high regard for beer.

Service: We haven't encountered any problems here nor have we noticed anything we didn't like.

Location / Getting there: In the middle of the Plaka neighborhood, across the street from the perennial “Scholarchio” which I have also presented in the past. Syntagma, Monastiraki and Acropolis Metro stations are at about equal distance. You pick a map and you walk, trying to find the corner of Tripodon St. and Epicharmou St.. To Kafeneio is the only establishment at the small, pedestrian Epiharmou St.

To Kafeneio business card

The comparison with the nearby Scholarchio tavern is inevitable, so there you have it in brief: To Kafeneio is a bit more expensive (but not too much), and its food is generally more imaginative while it has a good wine selection. Ambience-wise, it is more quiet and the service seems to be more up to today’s standards. On the other hand, Scholarchio has a slightly better view, and looks busier (it has more tables). The food is more “traditional”, typical Greek; it's OK but not to get wild about. Its small menus give you the chance to sample various Greek dishes for a low price.

See map of Athens restaurants at the bottom of this page.

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A Greek winery near Athens

Back to some positive stuff, now that the garbage problems seem to be over and the trash from the streets of Athens has been cleaned!

About two weeks ago, when the strike was still ongoing and walking in the center of town was not a pleasant experience, we chose to spend a Sunday afternoon at the Katogi & Strofilia winery, located south of Athens, about 1-1.5 hour from the center, 18kms before Cape Sounio.

The winery was organizing a Holiday bazaar - which as we learnt is a pre-Christmas tradition for them - offering visitors the chance to sample their wines, along with some accompanying snacks and Greek Christmas pastries.

It was a nice, sunny day, and the coastal road was fairly free of traffic. Quite a pleasant drive, even for us who are kind of used to it and take if for granted. The sea was blue and the sky was clear and sunny.

Katogi-Strofilia is the result of the merger of two formerly independent wineries: Katogi-Averoff (located in Metsovo, at the Region of Epiros) and Strofilia (located in Anavyssos, Attiki south of Athens). The result seems to have been a successful one, both commercially and quality-wise from what I'm reading... and tasting. The name "Strofilia" comes from the old, wooden, mechanical press that was used to extract the juice from the grapes.

Strofilia vineyeard, right next to the winery, in December

Winery entrance

Tasting room, behind the main building

Inside the tasting room. Pictures from the winery's past on the wall

I was most impressed with the wines produced in Epiros. The Traminer is a very aromatic dry, white wine while The Rossiu di Munte series showcases red, dry varieties (local and international ones)  cultivated at high altitudes in the mountains of Epiros, around Ioannina and Metsovo. You can read detailed information about  each wine in the winery's website. We bought some bottles for Christmas gifts and a few more for personal consumption... Again, you will find tonnes of details on the company's bilingual website.

Nice wrapping net, to protect the bottles...

Here they are... net-less, on our kitchen counter

An interesting linguistic notice is that many of the names are in the "Vlach" language, which was heavily used in Metsovo and other areas in Northern Greece. The Vlachs were a nomadic people, mostly practicing commerce and herding sheep, traveling between the areas of the current Balkan countries. They have for long been assimilated into the existing Balkan countries but you can still find traces of their culture here and there. The "Floara di Munte" (Mountain Flower) is another Vlach-named wine; a sparkling one for that matter,  made from the local Debina grape variety, which we will be drinking tonight, in lieu of champagne, to welcome the new year!

Getting there (updated 2013-03): First of all, make sure the winery can accept you on the day you want to visit. To get close by, take one of the "KTEL Attikis" (peri-urban) buses leaving almost every hour from Egyptou Sq. in the center of Athens going to the direction of either Anavyssos or Paralia Fokaias or Legraina or Cape Sounion via the coastal road. With either of these you may get off at Anavyssos (1.5hr. away ) and take a short taxi from there to the winery.

P.S. The name of the winery comes from an old winery machine. It is not connected with the Strofilia wetland  and forest in the west of Greece.

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