JAX Exchange - Spring 2026 - Magazine - Page 35
The city has undergone a quiet transformation over the past decade, and the food scene is at the center of it. What was once
dismissed as a transit stop before the ferry to Mykonos has become one of Europe’s most genuinely interesting eating cities,
precisely because it sits at the convergence of two culinary worlds. The 昀氀avors of the Middle East arrive here through spice
markets and mezze traditions. The restraint of European technique keeps them in check. The result is a table unlike anywhere else
on the continent.
Nobody navigates that intersection better than
Essentialist tastemaker, Anastasia Miari.
A food writer and journalist with bylines in Condé
Nast Traveller, National Geographic, and The New
York Times; and the author of Yiayia, a cookbook
built from years of travel through Greece’s mainland
and islands collecting recipes from grandmothers
before those recipes disappeared. She knows what is
authentic, what is recent, and what is worth your time.
With Essentialist, she o昀昀ers three ways into the city.
The 昀椀rst begins at her 1930s art deco apartment in
one of Athens’ working neighborhoods, with a market
run followed by a Greek breakfast and a co昀昀ee
reading session with a local fortune teller. The second
follows the East-West thread more deliberately,
moving through the central market, spice bazaars,
and a hammam, tracing the Ottoman layer that
still runs beneath the city’s surface. The third is an
evening itinerary built around aperitivos, a traditional
tsipouradiko dinner, and live rebetika music, the blues
of Greece, played on the bouzouki in rooms that have
not changed in decades.
Any one of them will permanently alter how you think
about Greek food.
Plan your next journey with
Essentialist and meet Anastasia
Miari in Athens, where a morning
co昀昀ee, a market, and the right
grandmother’s recipe will show
you more of Greece than any
guidebook ever could.
by Essentialist Editors
JAX EXCHANGE
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