Ithaki restaurant — Restaurant in Municipality of Vari - Voula - Vouliagmeni

What started as a wonderful evening ended with us leaving feeling abused, shocked and ripped off. Terrible Management at Ithaki Restaurant, Vouliagmeni, Athens, Greece. It’s clear that they have a friendly and helpful attitude to regular customers and are rude and ignorant to holiday visitors. Give it a miss. Much better value, setting and food in other top restaurants in the area. We booked a special family evening dinner at Ithaki Restaurant which I have been to before. It's a beautiful setting and was starting out to be a wonderful evening. We loved the music, the ambiance, the setting. We ordered lovely Greek white wine and put in our food order. The starters were delicious all from the Asian Fusion part of the menu. Then our main courses arrived, two pasta dishes, a duck dish, and a fillet Dourada fish. The first three dishes were very nice however the fish was dry, and tasteless so we called over the waiter and my daughter explained that the fish was dry and the dish generally bland. He suggested that the grouper replaced it and without looking at the menu, at the waiter's recommendation my daughter agreed to try the Grouper. Unfortunately, the Grouper was again dry and was served with a smoked sauce which was not to my daughter's liking. So once again reluctantly we had to return the fish. Now, this is where the whole experience which to date was pleasant turned downright nasty.

When we asked for the bill, the fish dishes were still on the bill. So my husband went up to the manager to ask him to explain what was being charged and ask why the fish was still on the bill. This was where “the customer is always right “ took a new meaning. The reaction to asking the fish to be removed from the bill was received with an angry retort that maybe my daughter ( who only eats fish) was not in the mood for fish. After much discussion the fish was removed from the bill and as my husband paid it, he was told he was lucky they had agreed to take the fish off the bill. When I stated that I was very unhappy with the manner in which the complaint was dealt with, the manager went berserk. She started shouting at me that I was attempting to blackmail them, ( which made no sense ) with our complaints, and to avoid paying the bill even though the bill €376 had already been paid and to attempt to destroy them on social media. We were stunned with this crazy outburst. Then she proceeded to take a video of my daughter and I on her iphone shouting at us to say that we told her we wanted to destroy the restaurant on social media. I asked her to stop videoing us, to which she replied she wanted to give the video to the police. Then she summoned staff members prompting them that they had heard me say I was going to destroy the restaurant (which I never said). At this stage I realised I was dealing with someone very, very stressed out, so I decided to not continue to engage. As I was gathering my things to leave and was about to leave something even more extraordinary happened, the female manager started talking about us unpleasantly to other customers leaving the restaurant. What she did not know is that I speak Greek and understood what she was saying. I interrupted her and told her I speak Greek. In all my years of eating at every possible level and type of restaurant, I have never encountered such unprofessional, hysterical behaviour from a restaurant management team. I say team because there appeared to be a male and female manager even thought it was not totally clear, which one was the actual manager. The male manager did nothing to calm the hysterical female manager.

What started as a wonderful evening ended with us leaving feeling abused, shocked...

Avoid Like the plague!!!! I booked a table on the 7th of September for dinner on the 13th of September, upon a recommendation of a friend that has been going for years. I called them in the afternoon of the 13th to make sure that it is indeed confirmed but they said that they could not find my booking. I told them that this w s strange, they asked that I send a screenshot of the booking to be sent by email, which I did. A bit later I called again and they said that all was ok and our booking was good, and explained that our reservation was 19:30 and that we had to leave at 21:30. When we got there at sunset time, we were warmly welcomed and were led to our table in a very professional and polite way. The sunset is stunning and the view on the sea is amazing. We ordered a few plates, entrees and salads and asked for a sole filet with the sauce on the side. All the entrees including tartare of seabass, the grilled octopus and salad came with some heavy sauce that looked like mayonnaise. We asked why so much mayonnaise and they insisted that it was not mayonnaise…but the issue is that nothing had taste… the sauce was so heavy and overwhelming. Then the fish filet of sole arrived and was so salty that it was inedible. We called the waiter and the manager to ask them what was the issue and they said that they had a new menu and clients were happy with it. We asked them to taste the fish but they said they taste all the plates and know their quality. They said that it was actually a mashed sole fish shaped into a filet. Anyhow to make a long story short all the dishes were small, overrated, mediocre and were covered in heavy sauces. We eventually asked to have grilled seabass with vegetables and sauce on the side. This was fine but I mean quite expensive (65€) for what it is. When the bill came they had not removed the inedible sole fish filet, so we called them out on that, first they refused then when we threatened that we would write about the service on Google they accepted to remove from the bill. We tried later to talk to the manager very calmly to explain that we know how the restaurant was ( my friend had come many times and knew the old menu but was disappointed from the new one) the manager was very rude, impolite and unprofessional saying that she doesn’t have time for us and she had other things to do. She was very condescending and bad mannered. I have never seen a manager of a restaurant talk to its clients in such a despicable way. Small dishes, very expensive (more than 125€ per person, mediocre to average quality, the waiter has no experience of which side we put the plates and which side to take them (showing that they are not trained), I will certainly not go again and I do not...

Firstly I want to say that I never leave bad reviews, so for me to write this , it’s warranted. The setting is stunning and the food is ok. The issue here is the price and the service we received from the staff.

We asked for the fish of the day (€145 per kg) where our waiter took my husband to the counter to choose his fish. He had no idea what to choose so asked to be guided by the man at the counter who didn’t speak a word of English. He pointed at a Grouper without saying any words so my husband said fine we trust you.

When the fish turned up it was MASSIVE. I’ve never seen anything like it. Would serve 4-6 people. And when the bill turned up… it stated the fish was 1.7kg!!

WHO in their right mind (apart from a greedy restaurant) advises a customer to order a 1.7kg fish for two people. We left over half of it on our plates. The cost of the fish was €250!!!. Now I have been to some nice restaurants in my time and never before have I spent €250 on a fish for two.

I politely said to the waiter how can you serve that to a couple without advising them on the weight nor the cost. At no point was either of these communicated to us. We felted scammed and cheated.

When I questioned our waiter he said we are an expensive restaurant and you can see how heavy the fish is. And proceeded to argue that it was OUR fault for choosing that fish. At no point did ANYONE try and compromise or listen to us. Outright called us liars for saying it was indeed their staff that chose that fish for us without any guidance.

I understand you pay per kg for fish but it’s quite disgusting when no one communicates ‘that might be a bit much for two of you, it’s 1.7kg and will cost you €250’.

When I asked them to do something about it they rudely said ‘no that’s what you get in an expensive restaurant we cannot do anything about the price’. No apology nothing. How can someone in the service industry at an expensive restaurant not even muster one apology. Didn’t even offer a free drink.

We are staying at the Four Seasons up the road for our honeymoon and all I would say is do not bother eating at Ithaki. Go to every restaurant at the four seasons over here. The service and people at the FS are above and beyond the rudeness of this restaurant. It’s quite staggering.

There was no manager on site at Ithaki either to discuss the situation… just a very rude woman, who looked a mess, sitting behind the till basically rubbing her hands together over the €500 we had just spent. I left there fuming.

What a way to ruin a lovely setting. I will tell anyone that visits Athens to never go to this place. Rude...