Xenious Zeus — Restaurant in Athens

We wanted to have a glass of wine and maybe something to eat on our last night in Athens. The placed looked very nice and also the menu offer. We sat down at a nice table and one of the waiters came and gave us the menus in such a rude manner that it seemed he was making us a favour. We ordered the house wine thinking we'd order some food a little bit later and the waiter asked us very surprised if we're not ordering something to eat and we said "no". He brought us the wine carafe with two small normal glasses and just left them on the table. We said "ok..." and started drinking, but then we saw that at another table he brought proper glass wines which was outrageous. We decided to order the simple fish menu (has several dishes) and share it as we were not that hungry. So we called the waiter and ordered and asked him to bring us proper glass wines and his reply was "glass wines are for bottled wine"... Oh, really?! However, he did bring us the glass wines when he brought the first dish, but how rude it is to tell a customer you're serving him different glasses because they didn't order bottled wine. The food overall was ok, the only problem was that most of the dishes were fried in oil and we're not fans of seafood being fried in oil (grilled or boiled yes, but not soaked in oil). I don't know why we gave the food a try, we should have just drank the wine and left, there was a way better tavern next to it with a roof terrace and a great view, but it seemed crowded and we wanted something quieter. Now we know why it was...

The orange cake was heavenly once we finally received it. I hope if you come you will have a different experience and can enjoy the food and the view fully! When we arrived a large French tour group was leaving. We sat, watching men busily clear all the tables, but when they were done no one came to our table. We waited, even as waiters walked around. For some reason they thought we only wanted to sit in the restaurant and not eat? We watched another table get up and leave having never been served. We asked if we needed to move off the terrace to nearer the building but I think language barrier made our question unclear, as we were told "No, it's okay." It was after we saw a couple sit near us and begin conversing in Greek with the waiter and be handed menus, that we got up and went back to the entrance. We waited awhile longer for someone to come out and then told them that we intended to dine and were sat in another location and handed menus. The service was indifferent. Oh well. We did like our cake...

To start with the positive, Xenios Zeus has a wonderful view, it's a lovely old school terrace. When it comes to the rest, we were all very disappointed. For one most of the stuff was not polite and forgot our items more than once. The food was the biggest let down, the classic greek dish Musaka was very dry (also tasteless), and would not be surprised if it was frozen and microwaved. The grilled beef patty was devoid of any meat juice, completely overcooked and covered in tasteless chopped tomatoes. The grilled feta (bouyiourdi) was by far the worst dish, the feta wasn't even melted, the vegetables were barely cooked and mostly raw. The Greek sausage and the stuffed lamb dish were both somewhat decent compared to the rest. Unfortunately, that is not passable considering the mid-high prices of the restaurant and the small portions and bad quality of food, especially when it's surrounded by numerous superior traditional Greek...