A small room off Syntagma
Nolan is a small, unfussy room on Voulis, a few minutes from Syntagma in the centre of Athens. No ceremony, no tasting-menu theatre; just a short menu, a full room and a queue for a table most nights.
Sotiris Kontizas, its chef, grew up between Greece and Japan, and the cooking carries both without making a fuss about it.
Comfort with a sharp edge
Familiar Greek dishes are nudged sideways by Japanese and Korean technique: greens and dumplings, home food with a cleaner, sharper finish. Generous plates, a great deal of flavour, prices that stay sane.
It is proof that a personal, mongrel kind of cooking, done honestly, can beat a hundred careful tasting menus.
Home food, with a cleaner, sharper finish.
One of the easiest genuinely good meals in Athens, and one of the most personal. Book ahead; it fills.
VANE selection. Chosen with a critic's eye and judged independently. It's here because we judged it, not because it paid. This is a researched profile, not yet a first-hand VANE verdict; where we have eaten there, the review says so.
Image: original VANE artwork; photography to follow.
