Olympion

Olympion is a ‘mageirion’, which is the name for a restaurant that would, in the old days, prepare a couple of main dishes each day and serve them at an affordable price. Even though this tradition has largely disappeared, Olympion still makes traditional dishes daily – more than two types – attracting locals who enjoy a meal at a fair price.

Reason to go

It has some extremely tasty food, the kind of recipes a Greek mother/grandmother would prepare, and it is fairly cheap. The atmosphere is similar to that of traditional Greek cafés, which are called ‘kafenia’.

The role of the kafenia has been as gathering places where locals spend time together, play backgammon, cards, have a coffee or ouzo. Still popular in the countryside, kafenia are spots where you often go by yourself to meet up with other locals. In the Athens of the previous decades, it was very common to eat in a mageirio or hang out in a kafenio. Many Athenians would visit these places on a regular basis since they were cheap. This was partly due to economies of scale; when a person cooks for many people, the cost per portion of food and, subsequently, per person is significantly reduced. Olympion resembles this type of traditional mageirion, as it does have some very loyal customers, many of whom actually live in the neighborhood.