Rakor — Restaurant in Athens

I had the pleasure to discover different and unique restaurant in the heart of Athens possibly somewhere that would never come. But it has changed, it has become an up-and-coming area. It has been cleaned up and there no longer are any drug addicts. Now the service the waiter definitely needs to go back to school and get trained. Or they meet to replace her as she is totally unfit to talk to human beings with her bad attitude. Now the food was good. The tuna was almost very good if it did not have all the fibers all over the place which you can see discarded on the side of my plate. But the steak tartar, they need to take off of the menu because this is not a state tartar, by any way of conceiving what a steak tartar should be like and what it should taste. One thing a steak tartar should never have a tangy taste when it has a tangy taste for people who know it puts them off. Because usually the meat is off. Not to say that the meat was off in your case, but you still should take it off the menu. Other than that I saw a lot of other nice dishes on the menu and I'm gonna come back and I'm gonna try them. I'm gonna give this place a second chance. Because I feel like maybe today was not their best day. Which it happens...

Last week I had the chance to visit Greece on a business trip. One of the restaurants I could eat at was Rakor. Very nice restaurant! And they have some items marked as Gluten Free (GF) in their menu, which is very good! Besides, the food was really tasty! I must confess that I liked it a lot!

Nevertheless, there is something I'd like to encourage them to improve: the importance of avoiding cross-contamination with gluten. They left the bread (with gluten) right next to me instead of putting it on the other side of the table. Although they knew that I am coeliac, they brought the cheese board mixed with bread. When we told them, the waitress pointed some cheese portions that were not in contact with the bread. I explained her that I couldn't eat those either because of cross-contamination. She understood and brought a new cheese board without bread. All good!

The problem is that these small details made me feel uncomfortable for the rest of the lunch because, regardless the dishes we ordered were marked as "gluten-free" on their menu, I was no longer...

So glad we went to Rakor! It lived up to the recommendation we’d received from an Athenian. Tucked away on a side street, Rakor offers elevated Greek food and includes lots of choices for vegans & those who seek certified organic meals and wines. We ordered 4 appetizers (seafood, dip & two salads), one main, and an organic rosé wine. We struggled to finish. You could taste the freshness in each dish, which also offered something unexpected. We had the pleasure of spending time with Chef Dimitri who described the unique ingredients that were included in the dishes we’d chosen; how he interpreted Greek cuisine while committing to organic and sustainable agriculture. Glad we chose to end with a dessert. Visually the frozen lemon dessert looked simple. Chef Dimitri told us to give it two minutes to allow the flavours to emerge. Wow!!! It was unexpectedly rich, creamy and exquisitely lemony!! We wish we had more time in Athens to sample more of their innovative interpretation and exquisitely...