Athens is a city to be walked in. Not always to the Acropolis and the Parthenon. These are magnificent, certainly, at least out of season. Visit with all the confused Americans and the magnificence is replaced with a feeling that Hades is there thrusting his spear into your delicate soul.
In calmer times, the hills of Athens must be toured and traipsed upon; later, you become lost in the town’s winding streets, graffiti-covered, hot and sprinkled with choking dust. There should be a pilgrimage to Diporto, the 150-year-old basement canteen that serves bowls of braised chickpeas, fried anchovies and white wine in bent copper jugs, and there must be souvlaki, pork or lamb, pickled vegetables straddling charcoal-flamed meat, its fat rubbing into soft pita and tzatziki and herbs bouncing about among it all. Also, any one of the ice cream shops in Athens is a welcome interlude: it is probably harder to find bad ice cream here than good.
There also needs to be spanakopita, that historic Hellenic dish of spinach and cheese. Often it is feta, but in southern Greece it could just as easily be kefalotiri; the important thing is that it is sheep’s or goat’s cheese. Cows in Greece are much less important. Sometimes, spanakopita includes egg – I’m a big fan of this. I love eggs.
But perhaps the most enamouring part in all this is the filo, where inside layers are almost a little doughy, soft and to be clamoured over and indulged in. One, two, three layers on the outside are golden and crisp – the flakiest situations found anywhere in the world – a colour made more vibrant still by butter and egg yolk in richer moments. To hear the crack of pastry, green spinach and salty cheese waiting inside, is among the highest echelons of what it means to be savoury. Athens is endless in its pursuit and its delivery of spanakopita.
I’m going to set out what I think might be the perfect afternoon-evening in Athens. It begins in the late morning, because in Greece you should lie in. Head to Diporto, tucked away in smaller, unkempt streets in the basement of the town behind the Acropolis. Walk down the stone steps in the dining room, cool and full of retsina in huge oak barrels. The whole place smells of Aleppo pine and there will be a man in a white apron, his moustache grey and fluffy, standing over great pots of beans with tomatoes and courgettes. Sit down and he will place half a baguette on the paper-tablecloth table without speaking – unless you know him, perhaps – and then a jug of house white wine that reminds you of the sea. Then comes whatever he’s cooked that day: stews, oily fish, nearly always transcending chickpeas cooked low and slow in chicken stock and fat. These are to be scooped up with bread, or eaten whichever way, absolutely nothing matters, and with wine in small tumblers. These are not un-chic and performative east London small plates nonsense; they are par for the course, and efficient.
On one visit, there were seven kittens in situ near the toilet. There are always characters. It is the warmest, most joyful place, white walls and green facades; a photograph of Francis Ford Coppola with the original owner; pink flowers bursting with happiness in the softest light.
Take a long time at Diporto, while away much of the afternoon, and then walk through town and up the hill, passing the Parthenon, letting it be your north star. Find a bar called Klepsidra, not far from the Roman Agora. From it are views over much of Athens, and the wine is cheap. Bowls of olives and baskets of bread might appear. If it were to suddenly rain, the owner will take out a towel and dry off his favourite street cat, who perches for hours on end on one of the crooked walls. There could be a band of musicians nearby providing a soundtrack, or circus acts spinning hoops and standing on shoulders.
And then, the spanakopita; a deliberate, calming snack for the late afternoon as the light begins to fade and the cold sets in. The food punctuates more wine before it’s time to find Joker bar, or go home to rest.
Before 8pm, you will not fail to find solace at Ariston, a 5-10 minute hop from the bar, a pie shop that has been baking since 1910.
Who knows what pies there will be. Savoury, sweet, some full of courgettes or leeks, others with sour cherries, depending on the season. Try the tyropita kourou, a small half-moon-shaped pie served warm full of butter and crumbled feta. It is irresistible.
And get a spanakopita. A slab of earth and feeling of such power it would look Hades square in the eye and send him back to hell. I have not had better days, ever, than in Athens, doing this afternoon I have described. It is, there on a busy hill, as close to heaven as this world might allow.
