Dinner above Athens
There are restaurants with a view, and then there is Orizontes Lycavittou.
Perched on Lycabettus Hill, the highest point in Athens, the terrace looks out over the entire city — the Acropolis lit up below, the old Olympic Stadium just visible in the distance, and the Saronic Gulf stretching out beyond, dotted with cargo ships waiting for their turn at Piraeus. We had a table at the edge. It was, by most reasonable standards, an unreasonable amount of scenery to eat dinner in front of.
We arrived just before sunset. The light was doing everything it was supposed to do. Nina photographed a ginger cat who had claimed the best seat in the house — a stone wall with a direct sightline to the Parthenon. The cat was unbothered. Athenian cats have a certain confidence about them.
The menu skews Greek with ambition. Nina ordered the fish of the day — simply grilled, served with sea greens and a ladolemono sauce, and a glass of white wine that was mostly decorative given the view. I went for the pork tomahawk from Sparta, which arrived the size of a small geological feature, with triple-cooked potatoes and a yoghurt sauce that was considerably better than it needed to be. We also shared a wild mushroom dish — sautéed, topped with a poached egg and crispy julienned potato — which turned out to be the quiet highlight of the evening.
Gaia Thalassitis from Santorini — an assyrtiko that held its own against the competition
We drank a bottle of Gaia Thalassitis, a Santorini assyrtiko with enough acidity to cut through the pork and enough character to deserve the setting. Service was friendly, if a little slow to get going — forgivable when the alternative entertainment is one of the great city panoramas in the Mediterranean.
By the time we finished, the city had shifted to night mode. The Parthenon was illuminated below us. The cats had not moved. We had not solved anything or discovered anything particularly new about Greek food — but sometimes dinner is just dinner, and the view does the rest.
Nina with the Acropolis and Athens below — the view that makes Orizontes worth the trip
One of the resident cats of Lycabettus Hill, not at all caring about the backdrop
