Beefbar Athens is a beef restaurant on the Athens Riviera, inside the Four Seasons Astir Palace, Vouliagmeni, with the dining room facing the sea. The address is Apollonos 40, Vouliagmeni.
It opened in mid-July 2020. The restaurant runs over two levels, the bar on the upper one and the open kitchen with the main dining room directly below, so the cooking stays in view from the tables.
Humbert & Poyet drew the room, and the Monaco practice took its cues from the Greek sea and stone around it. Earth tones hold the floor and the walls, with reds and blues set against them: terracotta underfoot, raw walnut and iroko in the furniture. The wall lights are handmade terracotta ceramic. The central bar carries a carved pattern under a wooden top, with fabric shades hung above it and gold lamps on the tables below. Woven baskets hang from the dining-room ceiling, and the tabletops are tiled ceramic under a painted design. Outside, the lounge is laid out for sitting a long while, in wide patterned sofas and ceramic tables.
Four beef origins run through the menu: Black Angus from the United States, grass-fed Angus from Argentina, grain-fed Wagyu from Australia and certified Japanese Kobe. The carte is in three parts. It opens on street food drawn from recipes Riccardo Giraudi and his executive chef Thierry Paludetto found on their travels, moves to the cuts themselves, then closes on the house dishes from sides to mains and desserts. Paludetto works with Giraudi on what goes out.
From Monte-Carlo to the Astir peninsula
Beefbar was born in Monte-Carlo in 2005, Giraudi’s break with the fixed conventions of the steakhouse. He has more than 30 restaurant concepts across Monaco, Europe, Asia and the Americas. Beefbar is one of them, and it has three rooms in Greece: Athens, Mykonos and Santorini.
The trade underneath the restaurants is older than any of them. Giraudi joined Giraudi Meats, the family import business, in the 2000s, and became a leading importer of American Black Angus beef, Creekstone Farms among his sources, and the first importer of Wagyu and certified Japanese Kobe. The cuts Beefbar grills are sourced in Australia, Japan and the United States.
The architects and the plates
Humbert & Poyet was founded in 2007 in Monaco by the architects Emil Humbert and Christophe Poyet, and the practice has drawn Beefbar for more than 15 years. They call their own manner “warm glamour”, flamboyant without the stuffiness of the genre, and they describe dramatising the idea of luxury so that it reads as less austere.
Giraudi designed the plates himself with Bernardaud, the Limoges porcelain maker: white porcelain with a gold edge, each one revealing a coloured emoji once the dish is finished. A limited edition set of two starter plates was made for the Athens room alone.
The Leafbar, and the weekend
A green counterpart called the Leafbar runs alongside the beef. Its plant-based dishes are salads: kale with avocado, spinach under miso and Manchego, and a reworked horiatiki, the Greek village salad.
On Saturday and Sunday the room serves brunch from noon to 4pm, Kobe gyros and truffle croissants on that carte beside reworked classics, and dinner follows from 4pm. Monday to Thursday it opens for dinner from 6.30pm, and Friday adds a lunch service from 1pm to 4pm.
Beefbar is one of several dining rooms on the Astir peninsula. Pelagos and Matsuhisa Athens stand on the same grounds.
Who is this for
Beefbar Athens suits a guest who wants top-grade beef handled simply and an evening with no formality about it. The meat comes grilled, cooked as street food or served raw. Dinner runs to 1am every night of the week, so a late table is ordinary here, and the pines of the Vouliagmeni peninsula stand close around the hotel. It reads as well for two as for a long table of friends.
