Palia Istoria

Never mind that this mezedopolio is a bit out of the way you may find yourself returning nightly just to sample everything on the menu.

The restaurant is a visual treat, ensconced in an old house with high ceilings, beautiful floors, and genteel murals.

Begin your meal with the garlic bread, thin slices topped with kefalotiri (a hard cheese) and Roquefort, and appetizers like homemade herring salad with celery or feta saganaki (feta lightly fried with potent red bukova pepper).

Even run-of-the-mill dishes like cabbage salad are special-this one has two kinds of cabbage, walnuts, and garlic.

The seafood is excellent scallops with mushrooms and artichokes baked in bechamel and plump mussels either sauteed or with piquant tsouska peppers.

Deciding between the entrees is equally difficult cauliflower baked with ham and bacon, ameletes piperaki (testicles in pepper sauce).

The flambeed banana dessert wrapped in phyllo, followed by a liqueur (try the port-like Komantaria from Cyprus) and an espresso will finish off this serendipitous meal. The extensive wine list leans heavily on small producers from Greece and a prize-winning Hatzimichali 1992 merlot.

Mitropoleos 108 and Dendrinou, Ammos Marasia, south of Old Town (about 800 dr. by taxi), tel. 0030 22410 32421. Reservations advised. Closed lunch).