Tzitzikas & Mermigas — Restaurant in Athens

Tzitzikas kai Mermigas has a curious name meaning “the Cricket and the Ant” (after Aesop’s Fable), and one look inside will reveal that this restaurant has a modern art theme and serves creative, beautifully-presented plates of food! Upon sitting down, we were started with a complementary plate of olives and an aperitif of tsipouro, a strong Greek brandy. For an appetizer, the Trilogy of Dips included tzatziki, whipped feta, and smoked eggplant with peppers/walnuts, along with pita chips on the side. Next, the Tzitzikas Salad was a colorful mixture of 10 different vegetables (lettuce, arugula, tomatoes, cucumbers, red bell pepper, red cabbage, green cabbage, carrots, jicama, radish) topped with a mustard vinaigrette dressing, and served with chunks of salty anthotiro cheese and crumbly manouri cheese. For our mains, the Squid on the Grill was a whole grilled squid served with a jet-black puree of fava beans mixed with cuttlefish ink! We also had a special dish of the day, the Grilled Rooster Meatballs, which were served over tomato sauce, along with a feta cheese dip and fried potatoes on the side. The rooster meatballs had a distinct meaty flavor and aroma from the spice mixture, and they paired nicely with the flavors of the tomato and feta. Everything we had was flavorful and delicious, and the highlights for me included the squid ink fava bean puree and the rooster meatballs. The creative food presentation was a step above, and the service was super...

Food: Overall tasty, well cooked. Some portions of meat with too much fat. Fava was really good, marathopita as well, special mention for the melintzanosalad with nuts.

Service: In all fairness, effective. Nevertheless one nonchalant waiter that was taking deep breaths and sending expecting looks when ordering. Why the hurry mate? The place inside was barely filled. Another waiter was quite (relatively very) pleasant, so the first may not be the norm, or maybe he was having a bad day, or perhaps has a different approach to communication in a more direct way. Still, the good waiter can play to such strength better, and here it was a bit offbeat and slightly soured the mood — so overall necessarily not great feeling.

Atmosphere: Loud music at times making it hard to converse without shouting while sitting at the same table. I mean, the tracks were sympathetic (nothing hardcore of greek music etc.), but yeah definitely could be a bit better on that aspect. Overall clean however not really comfortable on some sitting spots. It’s either that tables sit too low or maybe the benches that are too far high, because inside it wasn’t a great sitting experience really.

Overall, would recommend, but bearing in mind...

What an experience was to dine in Tzitzikas last night! :) We came around 9:30 and there was no place outside so waiter told us to come back in 30 mins and he will leave us a place. We had experience with at least 5 waiters and they were all so very welcoming! Joking around, being in a very good mood and really seemed to enjoy being there. Now let me start about the food :) - we had tzatziki & rustic bread for starter which was garlicy, tasty and with added olive oil on top. Bread was soft & very fresh. For main we had seafood orzo & prawn saganaki! Omg!!! Orzo for me, is a discovery of this trip to Greece as I have never tried it before. Tasty, juicy, with just perfect amount of spices & mixed tastes. Additionally prawn saganaki was very well prepared, tomato sauce with feta was so delicious that we finished our leftover bread from starter by dipping it in the saganaki sauce. All is all - next time I am in Athens - I am coming back for sure and would recommend this place to anyone in the mood for good food. P.S. I don't have any pictures, bit you can see food we ate on my husband's review -...