Merceri food & drink — Restaurant in Athens

We visited Merceri for dinner, a personal choice that came with high expectations. I have to admit that my overall impression was on the disappointing side. Unfortunately this was the overall feeling in the table and I was guilty for insisting. We left tired (and literally sleepy) at the end of the meal. The food was good: there were some tasty ones like the ceviche or the fish, some neutral, nothing particularly bad. You certainly expect more from such a place and such prices. Portions are quite small as several reviews already mentioned but more importantly they feel smaller because of the speed at which they come. Now to the rest of the experience. Everything was soo slow! It took around 45’ to manage and get the menus, the first tiny portion another 20min.. 90’ into the restaurant we had eaten two bites. We had to comment on it to get a slighter faster pace and we ended up staying 3hrs45 to complete the meal with quite some pressure from us and left without exactly feeling full. The communication within the restaurant team seems on the problematic side. To give a couple of examples: we mentioned an allergy, then a dish comes with the ingredient, we comment on it and then two more come with exactly the same ingredient. We could remove it and we preferred to do so to save some time but how come at this level of dining, the message will not reach the kitchen? A second example that was repeated throughout was asking for something multiple times to eventually get it. You would ask for water and it would take reminders, you would ask for slices of lemon and that would come one by one. Similar with bread.. I felt that I was constantly searching for a waiter to ask something instead of the service team to be on top of things. The restaurant was not full to even partly justify this experience and at the end of the day, when you pay €100/person, you expect an impeccable experience (btw it is misleading to expect that you will pay €40). I feel that once the frustration kicked in, we couldn’t enjoy the meal anymore but felt awkward to just walk out. And we had to cancel any other plan for the rest of night since we spend the entire night...

We visited this restaurant in April 2024 at dinner. Atmosphere: the restaurant is located close to the "touristic" center in a quiet street. The interior looks nicely decorated and the terrace very charming.

Food: The food was tasty, mainly focusing on fish however also very nice flap steak. The portions were not too big, well presented and very tasty

Service: The service was moderate. We were welcomed by the "restaurant manager" which clearly knows how to service in an upscale establishment. He tried to build a connection with the customer, maybe sometime a bit too polished but very nice.

There was also a woman managing reservations as well bringing some of the plates. She has a natural flair in doing this and we like her really a lot!

Then there was Giorgios... I don't know where they found him, but he clearly is not ready for this type of restaurant. Where to start... Firstly when he presented the menu, he only gave the "a la carte" menu, while there is also a degustation menu. We had to ask for it and he was not really promoting it (although afterwards when asking the other staff, they mentioned it is guite good and popular). Secondly he tried to offer us 3 times a bottle of wine, which he really recommended (not on the menu). I was glad to ask each time the price (because he didn't mention), the bottles were prices between 110 and 130 EUR !!! Note that on the wine menu there is only 1 bottle prices above 100 EUR and most wines price between 30 and 50 EUR. I don't know what he was thinking, but he mentioned: "I'm trying to feel the table", clearly he doesn't feel it at all... Last, he was walking around majority of the time with the smartphone in the had (which he needs to record orders), was walking left to right, it really felt he's lost sometimes. After 1h30 of looking at him, we actually started to look at is as a comedy, he just doesn't fit...

Conclusion: Food: delicious Atmosphere: nice Service: very moderate Bill for 2p: 340 EUR

Will I...

Greatly underwhelming.

As we got in, the first surprise was the place was quite empty on a Friday evening. I'm used to places like this (Michelin mention and great Google reviews) being 100% booked even on less busy days so that was the first red flag.

Nevertheless, the welcome experience was ok, staff seemed nice, and they recommended a cocktail before the food. The cocktail (their modified margarita) was really nice and turned out to be the best part of the whole dinner.

Afterwards, we ordered the degustation menu along with the premium wine pairings (for the combined price of 130 euros per person). Here the first awkward moment came when the staff realized the food is going to come with wine but we just got the cocktails, so they suggested to delay the first course till we finish our drinks.

The food was unfortunately the biggest letdown of this place as all seven courses we got were okay but not a single one stood out enough so that I would recommend it or call it "great". I felt like there was a huge unused potential in most dishes and would prefer a shorter menu with higher quality.

The wines were paired fairly well, though we felt they also were not anything special.

The service was very fast and attentive up until the last course but then it was as if we disappeared. We were sitting there for half an hour with no more food, no drinks, without being asked if we wanted anything else or offered the receipt.

Surprisingly disappointing toilets (in contrast with the rest of the interior) with a broken door handle and no door lock.

Overall, while anything about our experience wasn't particularly bad, it wasn't particularly great either, which is not what you expect at this...