Athens, the Tatler Way
WHERE TO STAY Four Seasons Astir Palace
Old-world glamour and modern-day luxury collide at the Four Seasons’ only Greek hotel, a 30-hectare, fivestar resort overlooking the Athens Riviera, comprising three private beaches, a spa and fitness centre, and eight restaurants, all prioritising privacy and just 30 minutes from the airport.
WHERE TO EAT Nolan
Buzzy, contemporary restaurant Nolan, located in central Athens, is an ultra-trendy space to be seen, with a Bib Gourmand-awarded Greek-Japanese menu reflecting the heritage of chef-owner, Sotiris Kontizas, Masterchef Greece contestant-turned-judge.
WHERE TO SHOP Plaka & Kolonaki
The winding, pedestrian-only boulevards, boutiques, cafés and pistachio-toned facades of historic Athens district Plaka make for a romantic afternoon spent shopping for everything from locally made tahini to handcrafted carpets to unusual maps of the world. Once you’ve finished buying gifts for other people, head to Voukourestiou Street in Kolonaki, home to the world’s biggest designer brands, from Louis Vuitton to Gucci.
WHERE TO CELEBRATE Island Club & Restaurant
When the sun sets on the Riviera, Greece’s young and beautiful hop off their yachts and make their way to the exclusive Island Club for a late-night candlelit seafood dinner. As the hour grows late, the open-air club lights illuminate and the music is turned up for an evening of dancing under the stars.
WHAT TO SEE National Museum of Contemporary Art
The Acropolis and Parthenon are, of course, non-negotiables, but the National Museum of Contemporary Art (EMST) should be on every culture vulture’s itinerary. Finally completed and opened in 2020 and housed in a former brewery, the museum showcases 172 thought-provoking works by 78 Greek and foreign artists in its permanent collection.
containing an Ellinikon scale model, a mocked-up apartment and interactive applications of smart technology. Parts of the site were repurposed for the 2004 Athens Olympics with facilities like an arena for sports such as basketball, demolished only this year. Now, there remain only hints at the district’s brief sporting history.
Lamda, Greece’s largest property developer, won a government tender for the redevelopment of the airport in 2014, and began construction when it gained control of the land in 2021. Eight years ago, the crumbling airfield made headlines across Europe when it was used as a makeshift camp by people fleeing the Middle East, in echoes of the camps of Greek Orthodox refugees the same area housed nearly a century ago following Greece’s defeat in the Greco-Turkish war. Between 2016 and 2017, the UN Refugee Agency stepped in to rehouse the mainly Afghan families into permanent accommodation.
The project hasn’t all been smooth sailing, and Lamda, which has a track record in commercial “destination locations”, such as malls, faced suspicion from politicians and the public, and had to go back to the drawing board several times after government planners requested more public space in the designs. “When it started, it faced a lot of criticism because big deals in Greece, especially before the [debt] crisis, were criticised [on the assumption] that something suspicious was behind it,” Athanasiou said during the summer, adding that now that blueprints have been drawn up and work is underway, “People have started to see the benefits of the project, not only [on] GDP but [on] employment, the environment.” The project, Greece’s largest privately funded investment, is being paid for by loans, internal funding, a rights issue and two bond issues, one of which, a €230m green bond, was completed this summer and will fund many of the project’s sustainable elements.
Building a city from scratch is no easy feat: even with planning by the world’s best design talents, the kind of integration, nuance and rootedness that comes with a place developing gradually cannot be artificially constructed, creating that unmistakable “toy town” feeling of new developments. Even Le Corbusier failed to entrance the world with his Ville Radieuse blueprint, a “linear city” split into “zones”; the Swiss architect’s vision of utopia was designed to geometric perfection and intended to prioritise equality, but influenced the bloc-ish density of post-war high rises associated with crime and poverty in cities like Paris and Brasilia. Part of Lamda’s challenge has been to build a district which normal Greeks feel is a place for them and one they will want to visit frequently and be able to move around easily. How public spaces and amenities are balanced with the more luxurious side of the Ellinikon will be key to accomplishing this vision.
The Ellinikon is to be “a benchmark project for sustainability and smart living”, Athanasiou says. Large swathes of the parkland area are open to the public, with walkways, play areas and water features already in place. The site has been designed to follow the notion of the “the 15-minute city”, the movement within urban design that believes everyone living in a city should have access to essential services within a 15-minute walk or bicycle ride, proposed by Colombian city planner Carlos Moreno in 2016 and popularised by Parisian mayor Anne Hidalgo during her 2020 re-election campaign.
With Greece now enjoying a post-crisis wave of optimism and innovation, and riding high on the boost from a hot property market and a record-breaking year for its tourist industry, the Ellinikon not only represents a show of faith in Greece’s ongoing recovery and future prosperity, but presents Athenians with an opportunity to see themselves in the future of their city, long term. Athanasiou says, “We want it to be a place for Greeks to be proud of.”