PetNat, natural wine and the Peristeri aperitivo

Peristeri is not where Athens goes looking for a glass of pét-nat. That is the point. On Megalou Alexandrou, a pedestrianised stretch beside the metro, the team behind Kika, Haris Skafidas and Nikos Soldatos, have opened PetNat, a small natural-wine bar run to a Milanese clock: come early, drink slowly, eat a little, leave before dinner.

The list is natural wine, Greek and international, pét-nat and skin-contact orange among it, each label explained by a QR code rather than a sommelier at your elbow. It comes with crostini and a counter of good Italian charcuterie and cheese, a spritz if you want one, ambient jazz low under the talk. The idea is the Italian aperitivo, that hour between work and dinner Greece has never quite formalised, brought to a western suburb that rarely gets the new thing first.

The timing is not an accident. The street around it is being remade, newly pedestrianised, a culture centre opened this month a few doors up and a larger arts hall rising nearby. A place people used to pass through is being given reasons to stop. PetNat is one of them, poured by the glass.