Το λοκάλι — Restaurant in Athens

After hearing much of the rumor about this place, me and my boyfriend decided to pay a visit. The place is a small oasis amidst the scorching Athens in the summer. The garden is just wonderful with a lot of green and beautiful details all over. For example, most of the chairs and tables were retro inspired, much like the ones we were using in our owb home backyards during the 80's and 90's. The place that surprised me the most, was the bathroom. It had different music from the rest of the place. Playing Attik and other 20's. Relieving yourself while listening to yodeling was just priceless. It also had hand sanitizers disquised as old barber-scents, so after washing your hands you could choose the smell you like. The service was great and fast. The personnel, was super-friendly and eager to help if you were stumped with the menu. The food is extremely delicious. Many familiar flavors mixed with new ones. We loved the meatballs, we were over the moon with eggplant dip and the "pastruma" pie was oh-so good. The small "caveat" is that the portions were very small. It's more like stuff to nimble while enjoying your beer/wine/cocktail rather than a full meal. But that's balanced by their cheap price, so you can order many small plates and get to taste many different things. This place offers a plethora of drinks. Many inventive cocktails, an overwhelming amount of wined and greek beer on-tap. I was especially pleased to see that they are pet-friendly. So don't think twice bringing your beloved dog with you. There's also a small parking lot right next to it, so coming by car is actually an option. Which is rare, since we're talking about the very center of Athens. All in all, we had a blast. My only recommendation is to add some dinner-grade choices to the menu. Like, full sized courses for the ones who choose to have a full meal, even if that means a higher price tag. Personally, with that sort of quality and beautiful environment,...

In short: ok decor💡, slow service 🕰, average food in high prices 💶, disco loud music 🔊 , smoke amber 🚬 .. scroll down for details ⬇️

The lucky five of us got a table by calling them 15min before arriving.

Unluckily we got seated at a table with a huge loudspeaker at our ears level, with 3 smokers in front of us enjoying their cigarettes back to back. All the smoke came to our face from the moment we sat down at 8pm, ordered, still smoking while we’re starting to eat, finishing their pack, filling up the ashtray.

The mask-below-nose waiter said he could not do anything about smoke & music, not possible to switch table as the free ones were all reserved (while no one showed up till we’re leaving).

Fine, we spotted a free table and confirmed a party has left, so we moved there. Another big speaker behind our head 🔊 , still surrounded by smokers but at least the smoke wasn’t coming to our face (the restaurant has some plastic/glass that closed the space and their decorations made sure air circulation was on a minimal level).

At 9pm+/-, 3 out of 5 main courses arrived, and at 9:42pm, the two other main courses finally arrived. A burger with potatoes took an hour to cook, and a roasted fish, possibly freshly being fished from the aegean sea :)?

If you are looking for a place to damage your eardrums, where you can chat with your friends by shouting at each other, and you have plenty of time & patience to wait for your food & drinks, it’s great. It’s also a great place where you can find a lot of 2nd hand smoke to...

I’d say To Lokali is one of the places I’d recommend to someone who asks ‘Where do the local, young people go out for dinner and drinks?’.

This place is just amazing! The place and vibe itself, the amazing food and the very friendly service! To Lokali is located in the Gazi neighborhood, where a lot of cool restaurants and bars are located. It’s not very visible from the street, because it’s in the corner of a parking lot and the entrance is not floodlighted like other places.

There is a good chance that you have to wait for an empty place, as they also take reservations. We went there without a reservation around 8:30pm on a Saturday and had to wait around 5minutes. The place was half full when we entered but 1 hour later is was fully packed.

We ordered a variety of smaller foods because we were not very hungry but wanted to try out the amazing food. We ordered the sourdough bread, the baby tomato salad, the beef meatballs with fries and the tacos with shredded chicken thigh. All the ingredients were very fresh and delicious. You realize it when eating the fries, they are hand cut and fresh made! The food was very tasty, we really liked it! We wished we were more hungry to try more food, but we definitely will come back to this place next time!

We were seated outside, but there is also a big inside area to seat. The toilet is also located in the upper floor and is very clean and offers free (female) hygiene and styling products, this is so awesome!

We...