How Athens discovered a new, confident Greek cuisine

By Sofka Zinovieff

Athens is now a food capital where you can enjoy bustling bars, traditional taverna fare or unearth a new-wave gem in its many restaurants – but it wasn’t always this way See our recommendations for eating and drinking around Athens V isiting Athens for its food might have sounded like a joke to previous generations. Unlike many other Mediterranean countries, including Italy, Spain and Turkey, Greece had no renaissance and no aristocracy to fund chefs and develop sophisticated cuisines. They discovered fast food and began eating too much meat.