PALEOS Meze Tavern: An old taverna-style restaurant with no-frills homemade food

It is a new taverna-style restaurant in Thissio, with well-cooked traditional Greek food by two experienced wine and catering professionals, Angelos Damoulianos and Fotini Pantzia.

PALEOS Meze Tavern is located in one of the most touristic streets of Athens, the busy Andrianou. It is a breath away from the Thissio train station, opposite the Athens Agora archaeological site, and overlooks the Parthenon.

Sitting in the small shaded "courtyard" drinking and eating, with the sound of all the languages ​​of the world from the tourists and the songs of Vamvakaris, Angelos went back to the past to explain the how and what of the new venture.

"My grandfather had a taverna in Kefalonia, in Lixouri, which was called 'Antzoulo's Taverna.' Grandpa was known for two things: his cooking and being a dancer. Even songs have been written about him and my grandmother Darmera," he said.

"This is the feeling we are trying to revive here. A simple, well-cooked food that is familiar, always in the context of seasonality as far as the climatic conditions and the alum of the weather allow."

Many recipes have been collected by loved ones, such as Athena's chickpeas, with the aroma of cumin, a recipe by the grandmother of a friend of Angelos from Astypalaia.

We chose melitzonosalata, coarsely chopped with pieces of red pepper and vinegar, taramosalata, and a very appetising caramelised gigandes in red sauce.

They cook a certain amount of food every day, once a day. So everything you eat will have been prepared only a few hours ago by chef Dionysis Mousoura from Zakynthos.

In general, they do not skimp on the use of extra virgin olive oil, like in old times.

In the moussaka, eggplant is abundant and combined with a few potatoes to tie the food together. The eggplant pieces added to the béchamel are an innovation. The well-fried minced meat, with its spices and the measured tomato (paste), has a sharp taste.

The wine list is small, with 12 mild vinification wine labels, which means no fertilisers and pesticides in the field but only sulphur and no sulphites in the winemaking.

Among the dishes always on the menu is pie. The day we went, they had the classic spinach cheese pie, with lots of cheese but a mild flavour, made with a crispy, fairly thick phyllo, almost as thick as the sheet of Kefalonia's famous meat pie.

In the end, they brought me fine, warm loukoumades filled with Aegina pistachio cream, a fine dessert.

But the surprise was the honeyless melomakaronakia, crispy in the biscuits, which they brought together with cream ice cream from the "Proveio" shop in Athens.

If you go at noon, foreign visitors will occupy the lime-coloured solid tables. They will be immersed in quiet pleasure as they discover Greek food bite by bite.

In the evenings, the restaurant is retaken by Greeks, and the atmosphere returns to the native rhythms of the well-known hustle and bustle of well-fed people.

Friday night, Saturday and Sunday noon, there is live rebetika and folk music, with groups singing their hearts out and dancing across the street.

Info: 3 Adrianou, Thissio, 2103213170

Artemis Tzitzi is a columnist for Cantina. Translated by Paul Antonopoulos.

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