The Zillers Rooftop Gastronomy — Restaurant in Athens

To begin, I would like to emphasize that I am reviewing this restaurant as a michelin-starred restaurant, therefore the expectations are higher and the review will be harsher. My wife and I made a reservation a few weeks in advance, for when we would be in Athens. We typically use the michelin guide when traveling to identify great restaurants for date nights. On this trip, we picked a couple restaurants that were awarded stars for our "special occasion" dinners. The Zillers seemed very promising, the menu seemed good, and having been awarded a star, it seemed like a safe bet. The setting of the restaurant is great, it's on a rooftop with beautiful views of the city as well as the Acropolis. The young woman who sat us and brought us water was very friendly and even shared the interesting history of the restaurant and the building. But that's when the "good" came to a stop. Our server rushed through everything she said, and wasn't very clear about what it was that she was saying. When I mentioned I had an allergy to scallops, her first question was "do you have an allergy? Or you just don't like it?".. is having an allergy to some, but not all shellfish kind of rare? Sure. But you don't question a customer as if they're lying to you(she later asked if I tried my wife's scallop, almost like she was trying to catch me in a lie). It was awkward and inappropriate, but we moved on. The food was ok, the technical ability of the chef was on display, but the dishes didn't flow together at all. It was just not a cohesive menu, with some dishes being overly rich that seemed out of place. The bloody prawn was delicious, and we loved the amuses. So there were dishes we enjoyed as well! There were also small things that just arent up to the standard of a restaurant of this status.This may seem nit-picky, but the sommelier, while very nice, decided to open the bottle on the table shaking an already small and crowded table, decanted the wine, but didn't monitor the flow for sediment. The servers consistently just bumped my wife's arm or hands out of the way to put stuff down with no heads up(her back was facing the restaurant so she couldn't see them coming), and multiple courses came out incomplete and they made multiple trips. Overall, it just was not what you should expect from a michelin starred restaurant, and by comparison to others, I'm not sure how they achieved that honor. It was the most expensive meal we had in two weeks of vacation, and it wasn't even top 5 for enjoyment. We left wishing we had those 3.5 hours...

I am sure most have seen the string of more negative reviews recently. I am also frankly shocked that Zillers has a Michelin star – the caveat being that Zillers is in the process of changing their menu for the past month, but that should not excuse a restaurant that is “open for business” and charging full prices. It seems like a bait and switch is happening since they got their star last year and are still operating even though their new menu is in “development”. I felt like I was in an imitation of fine dining, like when would the cameras pop out and tell me I was on a show, or what it would be like if I was in a movie like “The Menu” – a farce of actual fine dining. As for the experience itself. In short, this place certainly has potential but it certainly felt like an amateur and incomplete attempt at fine dining. They have no real wine menu - half is out of stock and server had the verbally list off other new wines they have and not on the list. (Why not print a new list?) As fort the food, many of the courses would not be listed as actual courses at other restaurants. For example, the first three courses would be the amuse-bouche at any other fine dining restaurant (in fact other Michelin recognized restaurants in Athens in fact do have similar amuse-bouche that do not list them as courses). They even have bread as a separate “course”, albeit the presentation as an individual sourdough was impressive, I still laughed we got a loaf of bread as a course. The remaining courses tasted under-developed and often were too salty and the textures bland, usually just soft and like mush. Perhaps good if your teeth are poor. I was particularly looking forward to trying “A tale of two cities: Constantinople – Athens” since its such a hard hitting name but it certainly did not live up to the name at all. It was simply a scallop (Athens) that was too salty sitting on peas (Constantinople). Not at all a tale of two cities. The dessert was fairly delicious chocolate-based and large, almost as if it was apologizing for the quality of the mains. Overall, the menu was underdeveloped and clearly the whole restaurant has a feel that things are in transition and in testing. It’s a bit sad that they are “open” right now and charging full prices for this. It feels like a money grab since they got their star last year. I would wait until they finishing developing their new menu and actually open again, likely in time for Michelin to visit them again...

We had a great time at The Zillers boutique hotel. The location of the hotel is ideal, right in front of the Church of the Annunciation and few minutes away from Syntagma Square and metro station. The hotel is also located close to Plaka, Anafiotika, and Ermou street.

The reception desk service was the highlight of our stay. The receptionists made our stay enjoyable by enquiring about our day, giving out recommendations for what to visit next or where to eat next. They were always ensuring that our stay was pleasant and comfortable with complimentary water bottles and coffee.

The restaurant just acquired a Michelin star, and the included breakfast reflected this. Not only is the rooftop restaurant offering amazing views of the Acropolis, the included breakfast was from a menu and offered various options that were absolutely tasty.

The only downsides were that there is not a lot of signage outside to know that this is the hotel. Unless you know that it is across from the Church of the Annunciation, it can be hard to locate as the entrance is very very narrow and the only signage is a small plaque indicating that it is The Zillers. The other downside was the absolutely slow wi-fi in our room. We had the room facing the internal court, and we could not stream Netflix, could not even refresh our feeds on Instagram or FaceTime. We did not mention anything about the wi-fi because no reviews had mentioned slow Internet speed, so perhaps it only needed to be reset on their end, but the speed was absolutely horrendous for an hotel like this, explaining the four-star review. We would still highly recommend it. If in doubt, book it. Very pleasant stay, and though the wi-fi was slow, we were outside of the room visiting the whole time we were in...