Mercato is the Italian restaurant of the Four Seasons Astir Palace Hotel Athens, on the Vouliagmeni peninsula at the head of the Athens Riviera. It is on the fifth floor of the hotel’s Nafsika building, a wide and light interior with a Spritzeria in it and a terrace along the water. The hotel around it has 303 rooms and suites, two pools and three private beaches, and Mercato is one of a collection of restaurants and bars on the grounds.
The kitchen is Maggie Tampakaki’s, from 15 October 2024, when she succeeded Sergio Favata, the restaurant’s long-serving chef. In the room’s early days Luca Piscazzi had the kitchen briefly, before leaving for Pelagos, another of the hotel’s restaurants. Tampakaki trained in Rome, co-founded the Athens Italian restaurant Napul’e, and became known across Greece through MasterChef Greece before judging Junior MasterChef. She works with UNICEF on healthy eating for children.
The room serves lunch 1pm to 5pm and dinner 7pm to 10.30pm, with the Sunday sitting running to 5.30pm. From 7pm each evening the terrace keeps a sunset service of its own, Kipos at Mercato, for the hour when the light goes off the Saronic water.
The winter carte, Naples to Turin
The winter menus Tampakaki introduced in mid-November 2025 ran region by region through Italy. They began in Milan with a crostata laced with Gorgonzola, took in truffle-rich arancini from Piemonte, and went south to Sicily for a risotto al pistacchio with burrata and lemon. Naples sent zitti with tiny meatballs, Puglia orecchiette under broccoli. The cooking rested on cucina povera, the plain household cuisine of Italy, worked there with rarer ingredients than the originals ever had. A refreshed cocktail list and a new dessert menu came with them.
“It’s that same Italian spirit that has inspired our new winter menus too: authentic, generous, and made to be enjoyed together,” Tampakaki said when they were announced.
What the carte carries
The restaurant names four signature dishes. A Fettuccine Burro e Champagne is finished with bottarga and 48-month Parmigiano-Reggiano. A Marinara con Acciughe carries tomato sauce, confit pomodorini, olives, capers and anchovies. The Branzino is a butterfly sea bass, grilled, with sweet and sour courgette and crisp potatoes. The Panzanella is burrata di Puglia with cherry tomatoes, shallots, croutons, pickled cucumber and basil.
In September 2025 the carte carried a Spaghetti alla Nerano of courgette, provolone and basil, and a lasagne, the Mille Strati alla Norma, layered with aubergine, tomato sauce and ricotta. The openers that month ran to a Caprese di Pesche of grilled peaches, burrata, rocket pesto and prosciutto, and a Tartare di Manzo of fillet with confit egg yolk, truffle and Parmesan. Among the mains was a Milanese-style cutlet with tartare sauce. The desserts are the work of Michalis Chatzikalimeris, the pastry chef who signs the pastry across Four Seasons Astir Palace. A full dinner, dessert included, comes to 100 to 140 euro a head with wine.
Sunday brunch
Sunday brunch is older than the present kitchen. Favata introduced it, and it became a fixture of the Athens Sunday table. Tampakaki brought it back on 26 October 2025 as Pranzo Della Domenica: a buffet with chef-manned stations, served from 1pm to 5pm at EUR 85 per person. The stations took in an oyster and Champagne corner, a roaming tortellini cart turning out Bologna-style pasta, porchetta and brisket carved to order, and rare Italian cheeses, with a chocolate course to close. Italian-inspired DJ sets played through the afternoon. Kids Club access ran through the sitting at no charge, and the table was open to hotel guests and to people from the city alike.
Who is this for
Mercato suits anyone who wants Italian cooking of some care within reach of the city. The hotel sits on 30 hectares of pine-fringed peninsula at 40 Apollonos Street, half an hour by road from the historic centre of Athens, and has done so under Four Seasons since 2019. Breakfast runs from 7am to 11am, so the room works as a first stop as readily as a last one. There is a vegan menu for a table that needs one.
