Clochard opened in February 1978 on Proxenou Koromila, a small street in the centre of Thessaloniki, and it has been part of the city’s eating life ever since. Few restaurants of its generation in the city are still trading. In March 2026 it moved into a listed building on Plateia Eleftherias, bounded by Ionos Dragoumi, Mitropoleos and Rogoti streets and known as the Roosevelt building after the former name of Ionos Dragoumi. The entrance is at Mitropoleos 11, 54622 Thessaloniki.
The cooking did not change with the address. Clochard holds to fine dining, and in its own description it tells stories through dishes: French technique on a Mediterranean base. The dishes move with the seasons, the kitchen rests on the quality of its raw material and on consistent technique, and the cellar is chosen to sit alongside it. The list is kept current, it runs to hundreds of Greek and international labels, and the floor staff suggest the pairings. Main courses start at about 32 euros, and the room keeps a Smart Elegant dress code: long trousers and closed shoes for men, elegant dress for women, and no swimwear, beachwear, sportswear or plastic flip-flops.
The family
Giorgos Vasiloglou founded the restaurant and ran it for decades, known for his attention to detail and for an evenness with guests, staff and suppliers alike. Patience and a steady hand under the pressure of a kitchen and a full room belong to the same account of him. His son Alexandros Vasiloglou, whose own ground is wine, carries it now.
Three addresses
The first was Proxenou Koromila. The second was the corner of Komninon and Mitropoleos, where for five years Clochard had the ground floor of The Excelsior, at Komninon 10 and Mitropoleos 23. That room opened in September 2021, father and son restarting the restaurant together, in a dining room designed by Makridis Associates in wood and marble. The third, further along Mitropoleos, is the bank.
The building
The Roosevelt building went up in the 1920s to designs by the civil engineer Michail Lykoudis, and it opened in 1926 as the Thessaloniki branch of the Ionian-Popular Bank. The German command requisitioned it during the Second World War. After the liberation it went back to banking and held a succession of branches, the last of them Alpha Bank, whose name the restored building now carries. The restoration kept what the old banking hall had: the mosaic floors, the stained glass, the marble stairs and the carved decoration inside and out.
The building runs over four levels, a raised basement and three floors. Clochard has three of them, the raised basement, the ground floor and the first floor, which the central atrium ties to the ground floor, and in the summer months it also uses the roof terrace. Two parts of the fit-out took building work: the kitchen had to be purpose-made, and one of the cellars needed a climate-control system of its own.
A fixture of the city
From its first years Clochard has fed the business and social life of Thessaloniki. Its central position and its discreet room make it a standing choice for working lunches, company meetings and formal dinners. The restaurant puts its own emphasis on respect for the raw material and on the detail of the service, and it describes the new room as the elegance of the past set beside a modern aesthetic.
Who is this for
Clochard suits a reader who wants a long dinner in the centre of Thessaloniki, with the evening given over to it. The front has an imposing propylon, Doric columns and a carved tympanum bearing the emblem of the Ionian Islands, which was also the old bank’s. Behind it the rooms are high and quiet, late neoclassicism with Art Nouveau detail, and the setting holds the eye without taking it off the table. Prices put it closer to an occasion than a regular evening out.
