Athens

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