Those who live and work downtown know this best. In recent years, while there is an oversupply of restaurants, those that cover the daily need for simple, well-cooked food are few and far between. For “something on hand” there is Kostas’ or Lefteris’ souvlaki, Feyrouz’s fermented baked goods… Everything and something will be found. But if the idea is a half-hour break with a plate of affordable, nutritious food, together with perhaps a glass of wine and a couple of conversations, the options narrow to the point where it is surprising. That’s why, from the beginning, the idea of Argyros Koutsou, a cook we first met in Athens at the restaurant Tzoukouka on the Roof, to open a kitchen two steps from Syntagma Square sounded right.
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Afaia: A new, modern coffee shop has opened next to the historic Thisios brewery At Koutsou & co it seems that she is, indeed, intent on taking care of that neglected lunch break, cooking up everything from lentils to trachana and minced spaghetti to fresh peas. In her list of twelve dishes that change every day, depending on what’s on the market and according to her moods, you’ll also see her appetite for seeking out and showcasing local ingredients (from the Aegean cheeses she incorporates into few dishes up to the olive oil from the local variety of Zakynthos that will prompt you to dip some homemade bread to taste it, as he “saw and suffered” to convince the producer to supply it). Traditional recipes that are not often found out there, such as stuffed spleen or Santorini onion dolmades, but also ingredients such as fish eggs, rabbit, intestines, sweets, etc. they also make their mark on the menu. Oh, and there is definitely a love for meze – you can easily get carried away and instead of stews, you throw it into suzukias, eggy pastourma and tsipouras, and then find your way to the office.
The store, which is hidden in an arcade on Xenophontos Street, doesn’t have much. The hanging pots and ladles are its functional decor and everything else has a handmade feel, with homely details such as the linen tablecloths or the vases filled sometimes with chamomiles and buttercups and sometimes with artichokes. The portico that hosts it is not the most picturesque in Athens (a few dingy shops and an entrance to a block of flats with lots of renters surround the kitchen) but it has, on the other hand, that sheltered, cool feeling that we are predicted to need more of in the months that they follow.
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We plowed the market and selected the best fresh Aegean cheeses On recent visits, we tried Feneo fava beans with lemony suzuki, a saltiness that held pleasantly in the tooth, light and juicy meatballs with handmade mamadistika fries, but also a tomato rice with smoked mackerel that did not impress us as it lacked both the freshness of tomatoes and a short cooking time yet. A nice dish is the wheat trachanas of Arachova with fragrant Tinos sausage and rolled Sifnos manoura, as well as the celery-flavored pork pan with Andros veal and juice for many dips. The zygouri with “flesh”, red as they do in Zakynthos, that is, it is also worth trying if you can find it. Especially for the fried potatoes that are swimming in the juices and drenched in its deliciousness. You’ll accompany all of this with a selection from the short wine list or well-chosen bottled spirits. For the end, yogurt with freshly made sweet strawberry.
