Patio is the gastronomic room of The Margi, a five-star hotel on the Vouliagmeni shore. The courtyard of The Margi hotel, 11 Litous Street, Vouliagmeni, Athens Riviera, has held its nine tables since the restaurant opened. Summer 2016 was that first season. The court is an inner one, planted and quiet, half an hour from the centre of Athens on the shore of the Saronic Gulf.
What makes the drive worth taking is the ground the kitchen cooks from. Panagiotis Giakalis, the executive chef, sends out two degustation menus built on the crops of the hotel’s own farm and on what the sea gives up that day.
The room
Nine tables make the whole room. The season runs May to October, dinner only, Tuesday onward, with service from 7pm to 10.30pm and a dress code of elegant attire. Confirm the night when you book.
Two tasting menus, four wine pairings make up the carte. The sommelier built the four pairings separately, so a table settles on a menu first and then on the route through the cellar. The room itself sits among the hotel’s wine cellar, and the list runs from the major growing regions to local Greek varieties. One Michelin star and one Michelin green star, awarded in the 2023 guide, are the distinctions the kitchen holds, and the green one was given for its sourcing from the farm.
The sea supplies the other half. Fish and seafood arrive fresh at the property daily, so the fish courses follow the landings.
The farm
The Margi Farm, ten acres, 30 minutes away, from 2018, grows the vegetables, fruit, herbs and eggs the kitchen cooks with. The land is enriched with the farm’s own manure and watered through its own irrigation system, with mechanical work kept to a minimum. Vineyards and olive trees surround it, and the microclimate carries almost every fruit and vegetable Greek ground will grow, along with eggs, cheese and milk from the farm’s own hens and lambs.
Patio had run for two seasons before any of that existed, so the farm was added to a kitchen already working. What it changed is where the food starts. The hotel decides what goes into the ground, and the carte follows what is ready to pick.
The farm also receives guests. A visit is a guided walk through the vegetable garden, a chance to pick what is ready, hens and goats to feed, and Billy, a rescued donkey, to meet, followed by a Greek barbecue built on whatever the season has grown. It runs on request, for two people or more, with a day’s notice.
The chef
Panagiotis Giakalis came to Vouliagmeni through classical kitchens: Spondi in Athens, then Trussardi alla Scala in Milan, then Le Bristol in Paris. He trained alongside Eric Frechon, Arnaud Bignon and Andrea Berton. What he cooks here is modern Greek, with the flavours of the wider Mediterranean behind it, and the farm-to-plate line is a choice he made against that training.
One dish has been on the carte since the first service. It is called The Fish and the Farm, and Giakalis carries it to the table and presents it himself. Manolis Stithos runs the pastry section. A meal closes with a pencil holding basil seed, which a guest can take home and plant.
Who is this for
Patio suits a couple or a small party making dinner the whole evening, and a guest who likes to know which field a vegetable came off. The setting is a planted inner court on the shore at Vouliagmeni, with the wine room in sight across the floor and a terrace beyond it. The choice at the table is two menus and the sommelier’s pairings, taken at leisure over an evening. Pets are welcome everywhere.
