Name: Soil
Address: Athens, GR

A one-star dining room in a restored neoclassical house in Pagrati, east of central Athens, where Tasos Mantis cooks a single vegetable-led tasting menu drawn from the garden and the farm, herbs above all, and holds a Michelin Green Star alongside the star.

By Dimitris Stathopoulos

The cooking

Modern Greek, with the vegetable and the herb at the centre of the plate rather than off to the side. Tasos Mantis builds a single tasting menu around what the season gives up, much of it grown for the kitchen: a herb garden tended by his father, and an organic farm that supplies vegetables, herbs and edible flowers through the year. The aromatics are the signature. A dish of prawns with orange, marigold and mussels, cooked in a kombu seaweed papillote and finished at the table, is the one regulars come back for. The format is set, eaten at the chef's table, in the lounge or in the winter garden, and the pairings run beyond wine to fresh juices and low and no-alcohol options for those who want them. The room sits in a neoclassical house with a courtyard that fills in summer, and service reads the table and adjusts without ceremony.

Why it is in VANE

It holds one Michelin star in the Michelin Guide Greece, in the current Athens selection, together with a Michelin Green Star for the way the kitchen sources and runs. That second award is the point for VANE: a serious Athens kitchen that cooks the country's own produce and treats the vegetable as the thing worth travelling for, not the garnish. Mantis grows much of what he serves and keeps the room personal, a single menu in a quiet residential quarter rather than a hotel tower, on his own terms. A researched profile, drawn from the restaurant's own record and Michelin's listing, not a first-hand VANE visit.

Where

5 Ferekidou Street, a neoclassical house in Pagrati, Athens

Kitchen

Chef Tasos Mantis; much of the produce from the kitchen's own garden and farm

Michelin

One star, Michelin Guide Greece, current Athens selection, plus a Michelin Green Star

Style

Modern Greek, vegetable and herb led

Best for

The single tasting menu, with the drinks pairing

VANE selection. Chosen with a critic's eye and judged independently. It's here because we judged it, not because it paid.
On this profile: a researched profile, drawn from the restaurant's own record and reporting, not a claim of a first-hand visit. Where we have eaten there, the review says so.
Image: original VANE artwork; photography to follow.

Soil

The cooking

Why it is in VANE

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