For 14 years, Athenian diners have swarmed to Karaiskaki Square in Athens to dine at the themed restaurant Archaion Gefsis (Ancient Flavors). Thousands of locals and tourists alike have been served at its wooden tables by waiters dressed in tunics, and even foreign media such as the New York Times and the BBC have featured its fare.
The menu is based on the ancient Greek recipes recorded in the book Deipnosophists, which describes a series of banquets held at the house of Larensius, a scholar and wealthy patron of the arts. The owner of the restaurant says that the menu doesn’t include, french fries, tomatoes or soft drinks. “We don’t use any products that didn’t exist in ancient Greece. The diet of ancient Greeks was very healthy as it was based on a wide variety of meats, fruits and vegetables,” he said, adding that ancient Greeks used honey instead of sugar.
The chef, Andreas Charalambous proposes a salad with lettuce, mushrooms, capers, chopped cheese, poppy granules, thinly sliced pork, fried pieces of bread, oil, vinegar and mustard sauce, an appetizer with cheese and berries sauce and a desert with honey and milk that resembles to Italian panna cotta.
The first page of the menu includes the Hippocratic temperament theory to advise customers on how their food affects health and disposition, and don’t expect to find any forks on the table – ancient Greeks didn’t use forks while eating, only in the kitchen. Instead they were using a kind of spoon made of the crust of bread. “Strange as it may seem, ancient Greeks didn’t want anything sharp on the table. Forks and knifes reminded them of Poseidon’s trident,” says the restaurant owner.
Archaion Gefsis features a private room with columns, torches and daybeds, which customers can book to enjoy a dinner as the ancient Greeks did. The restaurant also offers delivery services giving the customers the chance to enjoy a hearty meal at home.
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