Athens

WASHINGTON — President Trump’s ambassador to Greece, Kimberly Guilfoyle, resigned on Tuesday after allegations of improper conduct but insisted she’ll “vigorously defend” herself.

Trump’s administration said earlier Tuesday it had asked Guilfoyle to leave her post after she faced severe criticism over allegations she engaged in improper and possibly illegal conduct before and during her tenure in Athens.

The announcement, after days of comments and speculation, came in response to a question to freshly minted White House press secretary Katie Zacharia at her first media briefing Tuesday morning. Zacharia said Guilfoyle “has been a wonderful asset to the team, and we wish her well.”

Guilfoyle’s departure comes after its possibility was previewed to the Associated Press over the weekend and Trump registered his unhappiness on Monday at reports about her alleged conduct.

“Well, we’re looking at it,” Trump told reporters at the White House when asked if he was considering firing Guilfoyle. “We’re not happy.”

Those comments came a day after the AP, citing a senior U.S. official, reported that Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio are “extremely pissed off” by Guilfoyle’s reported conduct and would likely decide on her future this week.

In a series of stories dating to late last month, The Wall Street Journal has reported questionable conduct by Guilfoyle, including an alleged threat to a host country official, accepting improper gifts and services and offering to use her influence inside the Republican administration in return for the payment of a large credit card bill.

White House press secretary Katie Zacharia speaks with reporters in the James Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House, Tuesday, Oct. 13, 2026, in Washington.

(Julia Demaree Nikhinson / Associated Press)

Guilfoyle addressed the allegations directly in a post on X, saying, “These allegations are false, and I intend to vigorously defend my name, my reputation, and my integrity.”

“I have dedicated my professional life to fighting for justice, standing up for what is right, and defending the values that make America exceptional,” she said. “I will not allow false accusations to define my decades of public service.”

In a statement released late Sunday, Guilfoyle’s lawyers denied she had done anything wrong and claimed that the money she was seeking from a Trump donor was payment for services — public appearances and speaking engagements that predate her ambassadorial nomination — that had not been paid.

The lawyers, David Schwartz and Jesse Binnall, also rejected allegations of impropriety related to Guilfoyle’s travel on private planes, saying that before every such trip she “sought, obtained and followed State Department guidance and followed the Department’s travel regulations.”

The allegations began surfacing weeks ago

After defending Guilfoyle following the first report, Rubio has declined to comment publicly on the growing allegations. Last week, Rubio said: “Our ambassador has been a strong ambassador here.”

But after another report appeared later, Rubio — speaking Thursday before leaving Athens — berated journalists for asking about the allegations. He said that he didn’t know if they were true and that he would not respond if he could not confirm them.

“You guys walk around thinking that because some source told you something and you reported it, it’s the gospel. It’s not the gospel. It’s not the gospel for me. That’s not the way we do things,” Rubio said at the foot of his plane as Guilfoyle, who was there to see him depart, looked on.

A second U.S. official, who also spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss personnel matters, said the State Department’s inspector general was looking into the allegations, which first began surfacing in the Journal late last month and have since multiplied.

The second official could not say if a formal IG probe had begun. Inspectors general often conduct informal inquiries into complaints against staffers, and many times those inquiries do not result in a full-on investigation, which can result in disciplinary action up to and including dismissal.

The State Department has declined to comment on a potential IG investigation.

There was no immediate response to Zacharia’s statement from the Greek government or Cabinet members.

Ahead of Tuesday’s announcement, Greek opposition parties had called on the Foreign Ministry to summon Guilfoyle to respond to the allegations made against her. “This, most importantly, is an issue of national dignity,” Sia Anagnostopoulou, a former deputy foreign minister, said in parliament Friday. Foreign Minister Giorgos Gerapetritis responded that Guilfoyle had been treated “the same way as every other ambassador” and argued that an official summons had not been necessary.

Hours earlier, Guilfoyle had posted photos of her meeting this week with the Spanish ambassador to Athens as well as birthday wishes for Lara Trump, the president’s daughter-in-law, accompanied by Dua Lipa’s “Dance the Night,” from the 2023 soundtrack of the movie “Barbie.”

Democrats call for an investigation

The top two Democrats on the House Foreign Affairs and Senate Foreign Relations committees, Rep. Gregory Meeks of New York and Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, as well as the ranking member on the House Committee for Oversight and Government Reform, Rep. Robert Garcia, D-Calif., have already called for an investigation into Guilfoyle.

Since late September, the Journal has detailed numerous accounts of questionable conduct by Guilfoyle. Its first report said that she had told guests at a reception that the United States could undermine the Greek government if it chose to, promoted the business interests of one particular Greek construction and energy company and allowed its lobbyist into private diplomatic meetings.

While Rubio was in Athens, the Journal reported — citing text messages — that Guilfoyle had asked a Trump donor and supporter to pay a $100,000 credit card bill just before her confirmation hearing, promising him access to administration officials if he did.

The Journal then reported that Guilfoyle had been enraged about not being invited to a Greek-themed event at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, earlier this year and demanded to attend while boasting about luxury travel to France with energy company executives.

Another report, from the British tabloid The Daily Mail, said that Guilfoyle had alienated staff at the U.S. Embassy in Athens and had pushed the bounds of behavior appropriate for the top representative of the U.S. government to Greece.

Guilfoyle is a former Fox News Channel host and California prosecutor who was once married to California’s Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom and was engaged to Trump’s son Donald Jr.

Lee writes for the Associated Press. AP journalist Derek Gatapoulos in Athens contributed to this report.

ATHENS — U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio called for the nations of the West to return to their civilizational roots and restore the values that drove the rise of Europe and North America to global dominance for centuries.

In Athens to discuss deepening economic, energy and security cooperation with Greece, Rubio delivered a speech later Wednesday near the ruins of the Acropolis, a widely recognizable symbol of the city’s ancient civilization associated with the creation of popular participatory government and the social contract.

Rubio aimed to remind listeners of qualities he says were born in Greece and later defined the West, such as curiosity, courage, ambition, a restless spirit of exploration and a drive to discover the unknown.

“It has become fashionable today to believe that enlightened foreign policy means prioritizing the ‘global community’ over one’s own people. And I think here, too, we have much more to learn from the men of Ancient Greece. They knew that there was nothing selfish or wrong about loyalty to your nation, nor anything selfish or wrong about fighting to defend its interests above all else,” Rubio said.

Rubio urges Europe to uphold its traditional values

“Today, we find ourselves at a crossroads,” he said. “The next decade will write the story of the next century. The course we take will determine whether the West maintains its place at the head of the world, or resigns itself to a future of atrophy, and servitude, and decline. We will either choose to act now or lose the choice to act at all.”

Rubio is seen by many as the gentle face of the Trump administration and has been frequently dispatched to clarify or otherwise address concerns about the president’s frequently undiplomatic statements.

Rubio, along with Vice President JD Vance, is seen as one of the leading contenders to assume Trump’s mantle at the top of the Republican Party, which faces stiff challenges in next month’s congressional midterm elections. Republican Party, which faces stiff challenges in next month’s congressional midterm elections.

The Trump administration has repeatedly accused countries in Europe of backsliding on their traditional values and democratic principles by stifling the free speech of conservatives and falling short on commitments to international partners like the United States.

Many of those countries have rejected the complaints and accused the U.S. under Trump of being guilty of similar behavior and worse with its staunch anti-immigration stance that some believe is racist.

Left-wing groups protest across Greece

Ahead of his visit to Athens, about 1,500 people gathered to protest Rubio’s presence and the war in Iran, chanting “American killers!”

The demonstration was organized by a communist labor union and other left-wing groups and was held ahead of extensive road closures planned in Athens. Organizers said similar protests were held in at least 12 other Greek cities. Police banned public demonstrations Wednesday in central.

Rubio seeks to reassure NATO allies

Rubio is on the second leg of a three-nation tour of NATO allies that has already taken him to Iceland and will end in Portugal on Thursday. The trip is aimed at reassuring U.S. partners that the Trump administration is committed to their success and security despite what has been an often brusque and sometimes rude approach to traditional friends that has stirred unease.

Rubio began emphasizing historical themes on Thursday, when he met Iceland’s foreign minister at the site of the landmark 1986 summit between former President Ronald Reagan and then Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, a meeting that many believe marked the beginning of the end of the Cold War and was a catalyst for the eventual dissolution of the Soviet Union.

It remains unclear what impact Rubio’s visits will have, although on Tuesday in Reykjavik, he sought to reassure Iceland that President Trump’s administration has no designs on the island. Rather, he said the U.S. shares Iceland’s deep concerns about Arctic security as tensions between the U.S. and Russia rise in the High North and elsewhere.

Iceland has been uneasy about Trump’s intentions toward it after he posted a map showing the colors of the U.S. flag sprawling across all of North America and extending to Iceland and Greenland. That wariness has persisted despite an agreement last month to increase the U.S. presence in the neighboring Danish territory of Greenland that appears to have ended Trump’s demands for the U.S. to take full control of the island.

But after Rubio’s talks in Reykjavik, those tensions appeared to be on the wane. Rubio said the United States would not do anything in Iceland without Iceland’s consent.

Visit follows allegations of misconduct by U.S. ambassador

Before delivering his speech in Athens, Rubio declined to comment when he was asked about allegations of misconduct leveled at U.S. Ambassador to Greece Kimberly Guilfoyle.

At a joint news conference with the Greek foreign minister, Rubio said he would not address the matter while visiting a foreign country, but added: “Suffice it to say our embassy here is doing a great job. Our ambassador has been a strong ambassador here.”

The top Democrats on the Senate Foreign Relations and House Foreign Affairs committees, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen and Rep. Gregory Meeks, have initiated probes into claims reported last month by the Wall Street Journal that Guilfoyle acted improperly while serving as the top U.S. envoy to Greece.

The Journal reported that Guilfoyle told guests at a reception that the U.S. could undermine the Greek government if it chose to, promoted the business interests of one particular Greek construction and energy company, and allowed its lobbyist into private diplomatic meetings.

Guilfoyle, a former Fox News Channel host and California prosecutor who was once engaged to Trump’s son Donald Jr., has denied any wrongdoing, and Rubio has defended her before.

Lee writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Derek Gatopoulos in Athens contributed to this report.

Two women reportedly injured in blast in Athens’ historic Plaka district, buildings evacuated.

Rescue teams have recovered the bodies of six people killed in a building collapse following a a blast in the historic centre of Athens, Greece, according to local authorities.

Documents and belongings found with four of the victims – two men and two women – on Saturday indicated they were United States citizens, Greek state broadcaster ERT and other local media reported.

The other two victims were reportedly an elderly couple, a British man and a Greek woman, who lived on the building’s second floor.

Two women were injured in an adjacent building, according to the fire department.

The blast that brought down the small, two-storey building in the popular tourist district of Plaka on Friday was believed to have been caused by a major gas leak, Athens Mayor Haris Doukas said. Neighbouring buildings were damaged and evacuated, he said.

“The damage extends to the entire street as well as the street behind [the building],” Doukas said. “We are talking about an unimaginable catastrophe.”

Two adjoining buildings severely damaged might have to be demolished, he said.

The Greek daily newspaper Kathimerini reported on Friday that the four tourists, who were due to leave their accommodation at about 11:00am (08:00 GMT), failed to board their flight back to the US.

Plaka residents issued warning

A group of Plaka residents had alerted the municipality and the managers of the electricity and gas networks about the risks of short circuits or gas leaks in the area a year ago.

In a letter published by Kathimerini, the group called for the organisation of a security exercise to identify any potential shortcomings in the emergency response system.

The citizen movement “We Remain Active” also stated on social media that a resident of the street where the explosion occurred had reported a smell of gas for several weeks and had warned the authorities.

A Greek police spokeswoman confirmed on ERT that residents had made the report. However, the nature of the substance and its origin have not yet been determined.

Plaka lies at the foot of the Acropolis, Greece’s most visited ancient monument.

Coffee

Normally we stay around Plaka, so Anana is the coffee shop I go to most often. There’s also Behold The Man in Exarchia, which is one of the coolest coffee shops I’ve been to. Exarchia has a really rebellious, anti-establishment feel and this place completely fits that – it has great music, great coffee and it’s just very cool. I don’t think there’s a coffee shop in London that’s quite like it. DC

My favourite is also Anana; It’s casual and low-key, with somewhere to sit down and relax. I’ll have a freddo espresso (espresso shaken over ice), which is basically the Greek national coffee now. NM

Bakeries

For pastries, Akra is one of the best places in Athens. The food itself is rustic, simple and delicious, and the pastries are unbelievably technical. There’s something almost incongruous about it – you eat very simple savoury food and then a dessert arrives that’s incredibly elaborate. It shouldn’t necessarily work, but it does. DC

No Crumbs opened this year and I’ve already been a few times. It’s a little outside the centre, but it’s where I’d go for breakfast or something to eat on the move. In central Athens, I also like Fillo, which specialises in traditional pies from around Greece. Last time I went, they had three different spanakopitas from three different regions. NM

Breakfast

I don’t really do breakfast in Athens. We’ll normally get coffee, then at about 11am go to Diporto, which is usually our first proper stop. It’s this incredible, old, rundown restaurant near the market: cash only, orders taken with a pen, massive wine barrels in the room, no choice of wine. They just put wine and water on the table. The food is incredibly simple: chickpeas, beans, vegetables cooked down slowly, sometimes grilled sardines or fish from the market. You could recreate a Greek taverna in London, but you could never recreate Diporto. There’s such magic in it. DC

If I want to start the day properly, I go to Ipiros inside the meat market, at about 10.30am. It’s not really breakfast; it’s a proper meal. They serve slow-cooked dishes in huge pots and we usually get the tripe soup, which is good for a hangover, with loads of bread. Then we walk around the corner to Diporto and have the opposite: braised beans, chickpeas, salad and, whatever time it is, wine. NM

Traditional tavernas

Whenever we fly into Athens, we try to go straight to Taverna To Trigono in Kalyvia, out by the airport. It’s as magic as a taverna gets. One side of the menu is salads, tzatziki, cheeses and breads; the other is grilled meat such as sausage, spit-roast lamb, offal, lamb chops, sheep chops. Everything is cooked to order and served with incredible abundance and generosity. It’s very simple: good produce, salt, oregano and lemon; nothing is over-embellished. I wouldn’t go to Athens without going there. DC

Manári is a proper meat chop house in central Athens. It’s relatively new, but it feels as traditional as possible, and you don’t need to travel into the mountains outside the city to find meat that good. I order the lamb chops, pasta with meat juices and tomato salad. The lamb chops are as good as – if not better than – a good dry-aged steak. Another favourite is Tavern Spanos in Kato Patisia, for lamb chops and meats cooked slowly on the spit. Once they run out, they run out. NM

New-wave restaurants

Linou Soumpasis & Sia is probably the most forward-thinking restaurant in Athens right now, and probably one of the best in Greece. It takes quite humble, seafood-led food and gives it a fine edge without losing its simplicity. The room is incredibly simple and every detail is really considered. Last time I went, they served a version of kakavia, the traditional fish soup, which was essentially a beautiful fish and vegetable broth with olive oil. Something that simple, done that well, is incredible. DC

Linou is one of my go-tos, too. It reminds me a bit of Lyle’s meets Brat. It has a restrained approach to food that still feels very modern. I’d also go to Pharaoh, particularly for the vegetables and whatever they’re doing with fermented wheat, and Ateno, which we went to twice in two days on my last trip. Get the Greek salad, stuffed vegetables and fries with mushrooms and eggs. I also really like Ex Machina: their saganaki is fried cheese but served cold, and I always want to see what [the chef] Adam Kodovas is doing with the seafood broth because the dish changes every few months, while the formula remains the same. I go to Akra for lunch because they serve smaller portions and I can order as many dishes as possible. NM

Seafood

Travolta is banging; it’s old-school and a bit like Bentley’s in London. You get huge plates of crudo and whole fish, and they have an amazing prawn and squid skewer with squid ink and olive oil that they mix at the table. It can get expensive (fish is incredibly expensive in Greece), but if you’re really into seafood it’s very cool. Phita is another good seafood place, a little further out. DC

Travolta would be my choice for more classic seafood, too. If you want something more elevated, I’d go to Iodio near Kolonaki. There’s one dish I’ll always remember, which is raw fish served cold with a crisp sheet of rice paper on top and a warm avgolemono sauce – a classic Greek sauce made with egg and lemon. You grab everything together in one bite and it’s great. NM

Cheap eats

For souvlaki, the best is often at little roadside or market stalls. Last time we were in Exarchia, we found a tiny souvlaki stall mainly serving the market vendors. For souvla, the bigger rotisserie-style meats, we go to Psitopoleio Peloponnhsos. They serve huge pieces of meat, lamb heads; all sorts of pretty gnarly stuff cooking on the rotisserie. DC

Gyros are a dangerous subject for Greeks because everyone has their favourite. Achilleas in Neos Kosmos is one of the few places that still makes their own [meat rotisserie] (rather than buying it ready-made). In the centre, I really like Hoocut. They aren’t technically gyros because they slice the meat raw, cook it and then chop it again into small strips, but the mentality is similar. For a late-night version, go to Mandraki in Kaisariani. They’re open until about 2am and cook meat on spits late into the night. Their gyros are huge and often sell out. It’s cheap, traditional and the sort of thing people actually eat every day. NM

Wine and cocktails

Wine is Fine is really good for a pre-dinner drink, and I also love Epta Martyres, from the people behind Loggia [on Sifnos]; I’d been to both loads of times before I even realised they were connected. In Greece, I tend to want wines that are light and bright. Assyrtiko is the obvious one; in that climate you want something really zippy. DC

Pharaoh has a great wine list, and Tanini Agapi Mou is an amazing wine bar. A Greek grape I discovered this year is Vidiano. Vidiano can lean quite dry but still feels really pleasant and crisp; depending on where it’s grown, the fruit and minerality change a lot. It’s easygoing but complex at the same time. NM

Line Athens is quite molecular and it’s the kind of place you stay for the night. The cocktails are some of the best I’ve ever had in my life, let alone Athens. Baba au Rum is right in the mix, too. There’s also Rumble in the Jungle behind The Bar in Front of the Bar. The first is a bar where you walk in and think, “This is cool,” then go through another door into the second, even cooler bar hidden behind it. It’s very Athens. DC

You have to mention Line and The Bar in Front of the Bar. At Bar in Front, they’re trying to be as zero waste as possible, and you basically order through a window in a wall and sit drinking in the street. I choose what to drink according to the weather – last time I had a frozen martini that was almost like a slushie. At Line, the Paloma is usually my go-to, although on my last two visits I had one of their punches, which changes regularly. NM

We always go to Athens’ central fish and meat markets. I particularly recommend being in Athens on a Saturday because that’s when you find all these farmers’ markets around the city. Some of my best times in Athens have been wandering around those. DC

Near Diporto there’s Miran, a charcuterie shop with a huge range of cheeses and cured meats that they make themselves. Buy something there, pick up some bread and take it home. There’s also a huge farmers’ market every Saturday around Exarchia with outstanding produce. NM

Out of town

I really like Vouliagmeni, down on the coast where the Four Seasons is. We used to drive down there in the morning for sunrise, or chase the sunset if we were filming. Lake Vouliagmeni is there, too. It’s much more suburban, with huge houses and tree-lined boulevards, and it’s absolutely beautiful. You probably need a car. I don’t have one particular restaurant to send you to; for me it’s the area itself. DC

For meat, go out towards the airport to Kalyvia. There are two enormous tavernas, Christoforos and To Trigono. During the week they can be completely empty, but at the weekend you’ll struggle to get a table. People tend to swear allegiance to one or the other; I don’t have a favourite. It normally depends on who’s driving me and where they want to go. Although the last few times I’ve been to Christoforos. NM

Visiting 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. Simple village dishes didn’t always translate well: in the past, tourists would suffer a summer scorching and some desiccated moussaka so they could puff up the Acropolis in August before skedaddling to an island. However, recently the Greek capital has undergone a gastronomic renaissance.

Athens always offered the joys of eating outdoors – by the sea in summer, or winter sunshine on the city’s streets – but these days chefs are rethinking the uses of Greece’s unrivalled ingredients, such as scented, sun-ripened tomatoes, barrel-aged feta, and the best olive oil in the world. Enlightened visitors are also re-thinking their trips, arriving at more temperate times of year, and taking advantage of how culinary traditions are moving in exciting directions. They’re exploring beyond the tourist traps and over-Airbnb-d areas around the Acropolis, finding treasures in humbler neighbourhoods such as Petralona, Keramikos, or hipster Kypseli. A bonus is the growing number of restaurants serving food from Asia, Africa, the Balkans and the Middle East.

In the 1980s, Athenians were leaving behind a history of rural poverty, fasoláda bean stew, and a largely vegetarian diet. They discovered fast food and began eating too much meat. The 1990s saw new levels of wealth; brunch, sushi and lobster spaghetti were aspirational goals for the upwardly mobile. By the time of the 2004 Athens Olympics, a cohort of Athenians existed who had never known hunger, war or dictatorship. Consequently, the economic crisis that began in 2009 was a devastating shock and the next decade saw severe unemployment and deprivation, accompanied by an influx of traumatised refugees and migrants.

Athenians who didn’t depart during the brain drain took stock. Unable to pay the rent, some moved back in with parents and grandparents, and others relocated to ancestral villages; rare is the person who has no toehold on an island or mountainside. Family olive groves beckoned, vineyards were tended, organic farming debated. Alongside the unlikely flourishing of the arts in Athens during the crisis (actors, musicians and artists often worked unpaid), there was a flowering of Greek foodies. They examined things previously taken for granted by most Athenians: eating seasonally, shopping at farmers’ markets, sourcing locally. Covid provided a final push.

Boosted by foreign appreciation of the Mediterranean diet and its delicious, healthy basic ingredients, Athenians returned to their grandmothers’ kitchens – literally in the case of Anastasia Miari, who wrote the celebrated Yiayia: Time-perfected Recipes from Greek Grandmothers. This trend “isn’t just nostalgia or a return to tradition”, chef and writer Carolina Doriti told me. “It’s a new confidence in Greek cuisine, where tradition has become something alive that we can build on, rather than something fixed in the past.” Doriti celebrated this trend for “honest and rooted cooking” in her wonderful books Salt of the Earth and The Greek Islands Cookbook. For this sort of excellent but unpretentious food, she loves the restaurants Lesvion in the Galatsi neighbourhood of Athens and Athos in Votanikos.

Alongside simple and enlightened Athenian tavernas are Michelin-starred restaurants, where local ingredients are metamorphosed in exquisite concoctions for tasting menus. There are riffs on grandma’s chickpeas and wild greens as she never imagined, and Yiayia might be even more astonished at how her descendants dine on Japanese-Greek hybrids, such as soba noodles with tahini, Ethiopian doro wat, Georgian khachapuri and Lebanese fattoush. Eating in Athens has changed.

Sofka Zinovieff has lived in Athens for 25 years. Her latest novel is Stealing Dad. To buy it for £9.89, to go the Guardian bookshop