Kotili — Restaurant in Athens

The worst dining experience we had in Greece. A definite tourist trap that went from bad to worse.

Like most people, we were lured in by the music and friendly fella outside. But once inside, it’s obvious this place is lacking the fundamentals that make a restaurant good. Once in there, we saw all the staff arguing with each other. There were raised voices and gesticulating for the duration.

We ordered starters and a steak each. They both arrived at basically the same time and we literally couldn’t even fit our plates on the table so had to drag another one over without help from anyone. The steak was like rubber and overdone despite me asking for it medium. We asked for peppered sauce with it (it’s on the menu) and were told it would take “1-2 minutes to prepare”.

10 minutes later, as the steak, sitting there like the sole of a wellington boot, is going cold, we ask for peppered sauce again. We’re told it’s “nearly ready”.

The steak is now cold and eventually the ‘peppered sauce’ comes out. Except there’s a catch, it’s not peppered sauce. It’s plain béchamel sauce without even a hint of pepper.

Instead of making a scene we just leave the steak and disgusting sauce there and ask for the bill. We’re charged €4 each for the two sauces by the waiter who insists that this definitely is peppered sauce - despite what we might think. He then asks if we’d like to leave a tip. Needless to say, we didn’t feel it necessary to tip for the worst steak ever and a €4 portion from a jar of shop bought sauce.

But there’s a final sting in the tail. Before we pay, I look over my GF shoulder to see a dead pigeon sitting behind her on the terrace. It has obviously been eaten by one of the many stray cats in Athens.

An absolutely disgusting experience. Avoid at all costs unless you want rubbish food and staff arguing...

This restaurant was our only let down when dining in Athens. My honest opinion is that they do not like tourists very much, despite being located in a touristy area. When calling to reserve, they quickly told me ‘don’t be late’. I asked whether they needed my phone number and they said ‘No, we don’t need your phone number. If you arrive late you will lose the table’, which is understandable but I do not believe this is something you say to a client, especially in the tone that was used. When arriving at the restaurant we were given two large bottles of water. I asked the man who gave us the bottles to also bring us a bottle of sparkling water. He instead brought a room temperature still water. After managing to get his attention again and informing him that this was not what I asked for, he left with the bottle and did not come back with our sparkling water (he did not seem to understand English, and I later discovered that he was not a waiter, but was just helping serve water etc. However, no other waiter acknowledged us so we assumed he was our waiter for the first 20-30min). After I communicated this with what I think is the owner/manager he said something along the lines of ‘We cannot order one thing at a time, we are very busy. Order everything all at once.’ and left without giving me time to respond or react. We did not leave the restaurant as it was around 9:30pm at this point and we were hungry. It took us quite a lot of effort to finally get the attention of a waiter, who took our full order (drinks & food). After that the service was okay but the food was super oily.

The atmosphere was really nice, however the service was disappointing and the food...

Trust all the negative reviews. The good ones were a case of luck. Have you noticed that they don't even reply? It's because they don't care.

The manager is the rudest Greek I met during my time there. I know he's not the reflection of his people, but I've never been treated so badly at a restaurant in my whole life. He said he would call the police if I didn't pay for a 30 Euro dish consisting of four small meatballs with a little portion of COLD French Fries that I hadn't eaten. He was literally screaming at my family when I complained about his food. He said and I quote "You're on vacation, man. Relax".

If I spoke Greek, I would have welcomed the police to deal with this sort of people. He was nasty with us since the beggining. He was just angry and treating us poorly because we didn't accept the water and bread he presented as free. We politily declined because we weren't thirsty and the bread looked old. We then checked with a waiter and he confirmed that both things were charged. (We didn't order anything, so why bring it? Why get upset about us not accepting something we didn't want in the first place? I know most places do it in Greece, but they usually don't get so worked up if we say no).

We ended up paying for everything (including my dish that I didn't even eat and my family's not so fresh seafood. We're from a coastal city and my grandpa owned a fish shop, so we know our sea creatures really well) so as not to cause more scene that the one he's already created.

We gave the food to the cats outside the restaurant. They licked it and then ignored it. So I wonder who...