4 Best Bars in Athens

Line

50 Best

All whitewashed walls and neck-craning ceilings, this former art gallery is the digs of Athens cocktail royalty Vasilis Kyritsis and Nikos Bakoulis (alongside Three Cents’ Dimitris Dafopoulos). Just a few klicks from the pair’s downtown debut venue, The Clumsies, Line needed to be big to accommodate its owners' ambitions: to redefine craft bartending. Here, they don’t just mix and serve products, they also make many of them on site. That means back-of-house stainless-steel tanks gently fermenting with the season’s bounty – the latest of them being a strawberry wine, a ferment of yellow and white peach and a winter melon vermouth. What’s left from this process finds its way into delicious fruit-cheeses that act as an invitation to try Line’s house-made bread, which itself shares a family history with the on-site beer. The ingredient circularity doesn’t stop there – the fruit ferments find their way into the cocktails too, delivering delicious seasonal twists on favorite classics.

The Clumsies

50 Best

Athens has visionary bartenders Nikos Bakoulis and Vasilis Kyritsis to thank for all-day cocktail bar The Clumsies – a World’s 50 Best Bars big-hitter. Securing investment at the height of the country’s recession, the pair transformed a run-down building into a three-storey pleasure palace, complete with menus only legible under UV light. Come for modern Greek plates and top-notch mixology – or a combination of the two: their ‘Mediterranean Gimlet’ blends Star of Bombay gin with ‘Greek salad cordial’ (slow-cooked tomato water with cucumber, red pepper, olives and oregano) finished with a garnish of dehydrated leaven.

Baba Au Rum

50 Best

In a world of flashy bars, there’s something very straightforward and honest about Baba au Rum. A self-styled “rum and cocktail society” where you come for the drinks but “stay for the company”, it wears its heart on its sleeve, just like owner Thanos Prunarus. With more than 400 rums on the back bar and a series of pitch-perfect takes on tropical classics such as the Supremus No.58 (a twist on the Ti Punch made with two rums, falernum, tea and summer fruits), this is obviously a place for lovers of all things sugarcane, but Baba is also open to other spirits – try, for example, the Beatnik Paloma, made with tequila, mezcal, beetroot, black cardamom and grapefruit soda. With great music and a design inspired by the Modernism movement, Baba au Rum is a sophisticated drinking den that’s very easy to fall in love with. That’s why it remains relevant more than 15 years after first opening its doors.

Dolli's 

The Dolli Hotel Rooftop

A stunning rooftop restaurant gazing at the Parthenon and Plaka. Surrounded by blooming flowers, a sparkling pool, and a 360° view of the Acropolis, Parthenon, and Plaka, this rooftop oasis invites you to savor the good life in full bloom. The chef presents a menu that marries Mediterranean elegance with Asian flair, offering dishes as vibrant and refined as the setting itself.