The many faces of Syntagma Square's Culinary Art Page 3

Some Major Changes to the square

American Express Moved to Academias St

I also grudgingly recall the young Greek guys sitting there hustling [doing 'kamaki' (scoring-harpooning)] all (almost all:) the hot young foreign Scandinavian and American babes that used to gravitate there, as back then, in the early '70s American Express (which is now a block over on Academias St. photo right) used to be right on the corner of Syntagma Square and Hermes (Ermou St.). The best location in town and where Papaspirou's kitchen itself used to be. Millions of past visitors to Athens know what I am talking about.

In Greek, both Papaspirou's and Zonars would have been called a Patisserie or a Zacharo-plasteo (sugar shaper) (confectioner is too easy because the English plasitc comes from plasteo) and both restaurants were institutions, used by hundreds of thousands, at least, and more than the sum of their by-gone era parts.

For me, Its that type of international melange, of Zonars in particular, as in the eclectic menu, evidenced by these two, which create the uniqueness that is so Greek. Greeks have been everywhere, if they haven't migrated somewhere, then they have at least traded there and also having the largest merchant marine in the world to boot, Greeks tend to get around. So when Mr. Zonars decided to emulate the best of the best he did a pretty darn good job of it.

Anyway there are new things in the square to discover, lets see if they have the staying power that Zonars did.

Learn more about food in Constitution Square: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6