“When you choose, you better use your eyes than your ears”

By Remy


By Gargantua

What gives a restaurant a good name in our times are usually the wrong reasons. I have seen restaurants getting good critiques, just because they have design silverware, or are owned by someone famous, or just because there you may meet some “pretty” people. Rarely, a restaurant is established by it’s quality cuisine.

To mention the low quality of Italian cuisine in Greece is merely worthless. Of course the lack of authenticity is a phenomenon met in many restaurants of international cuisine in Athens, but Italian cuisine is the most characteristic example. Few beacons of authenticity that exist, usually lack of all the other ‘trendy’ attributes and therefore close before their time.

“Il Cantuccio” belongs to the latter category of authenticity, which lacks any glamour, which in the end is not at all necessary. In the narrow streets of the Psyrri area, where all options for food seem uniform and of low quality, “Il Cantuccio” has kept the flag of resistance and quality high. With the presence of noble Giovanni in the kitchen and the very helpful staff in the salon, this warm Italian joint creates the proper circumstances for an interesting evening.

The welcome treat is a lightly scented garlic bread combined with pickled vegetables.
The salad with spinach, bacon, gorgonzola and anchovies had the right acidity and saltiness with the decisive presence of the anchovies, a basic ingredient of south Italian cuisine. The Calzonetti al Tartufo (€6.00) are a must. Small, soft and tasteful pies filled with truffle pate and other mushrooms of the forest. The beef Carpaccio with ruccola and parmesan cheese, was a little mild on it’s own, but with the help of some pepper, it turned into an elegant starter.

Even though the original Italian cuisine calls for pasta not being a main dish, we Greeks go to sleep after spaghetti. In “Il Cantuccio” though they treat it the Italian way. The Ravioli al Tartufo (€15.00), come in a quantity capable of leaving space for the main dish. The first impression of the dish is the one that precedes the waiter as he brings it. The delicate and warm scent of the truffle fills the room and people turn their heads drawn by the smell. In the mouth the dish becomes the sincere testimony of the chef’s soul and of the Tuscan earth with the truffle dominating the taste. The Saltibocca alla Romana, a dish off menu, but eager to appear on your table if you ask the chef to make it, revealed to me new experiences of taste. The soft and fatless pork, along with bacon, parmesan cheese and common sage sauce, can’t be described easily. It was a new taste for me, which I strongly recommend you try.

We finished our meal with homemade ice cream, dressed with amaretto (€5.00), a simple but absolutely satisfying solution for a dessert, while we got a hand in digesting by the homemade limoncello. Full of flavour of fresh lemon, creamy and aromatic enough, a reason on its own to visit. The wine list is satisfactory, with a variety of Italian wines in comparatively reasonable prices. Your next visit to Psyrri can be very different from the previous ones if you visit “Il Cantuccio”. Less hussle, more politeness. Less trendy elements, more authenticity. Less Greece, more Italy!





I was initially confronted with my personal disbelief towards the massiveness of the Psyrri phenomenon. This was due to previous disastrous experiences in nearby restaurants, where design was the issue, on the expense of an at least bearable level of food quality. Moreover, Italian cuisine has been brutally modified downwards in Greece in order to meet the level of quality and taste that a modern Greek is used to. Despite these facts I have to admit that at the end of the evening I left having been proven wrong, but smiling and satisfied.

The restaurant has warm and friendly spaces with low lighting and discrete levels of music. At the door, the friendly and always smiling chef Giovanni, with a long term presence in the Greek restaurant scene, who stayed in the kitchen the whole evening having to prepare all the dishes personally.

We started with crunchy garlic bread and homemade pickled veggies, with the right acidity and a salad with spinach, gorgonzola, bacon and anchovies, pleasantly spicy. With the company of a red BARBERA D’ ASTI 2003 (30€), we tried the Calzoncini al tartufo (6€), perfectly scented and filled with cheese and truffle and we went on with an elegantly cut beef carpaccio (8€). All were simple, tastefull and authentic, but stay on your memory only temporarily.

Just until a tasteful thunder hit our table. The ravioli al tartufo (15€), where a delicate simplicity and the warmth of the dish, the right cooked pasta and the strong smell of fresh truffle, made you wish that it would never end. The Saltimbocca ala Romana (not in the menu, but the chef will gladly prepare it for you on off peak nights) , scented with common sage, lemony and correctly cooked, with all the juices of the meat “jumping” in your mouth, a good reason to visit again.

The ideal finale came with the Amaretto ice cream (€5.00), the excellent and light Tiramisu (€5) and the frozen limoncello de la casa. The service, although the evening was quiet, was very polite and precise.
Bearing in mind the reasonable prices and the offered quality, “Il cantuccio” offers an everyday luxury and a reason for dinning out often, away from weekend herds.