Spondi is a formal French restaurant in Pangrati, in Athens, near the Panathenaic Stadium, and 2026 is its 30th year of unbroken service. It was founded in 1996, by Apostolos Trastelis, who owns it still. Find it at 5 Pyrronos Street, Pangrati, Athens 11636.
The cooking is contemporary French with Greek produce, and the repertoire is built on langoustine, foie gras and game. Arnaud Bignon, executive chef, returned to the kitchen in 2018. He had cooked at Spondi once before, from 2005, and left in 2012 for The Greenhouse in Mayfair. He was born in Le Mans and took up cooking in Paris, where he trained at Montparnasse 25 and with Alain Ducasse before working under Éric Frechon, his mentor, at Épicure in the Hôtel Le Bristol. He came to Athens the first time from there, and traces his feeling for seasonality to his grandfather’s garden. He describes an evening in the room as something staged and directed: “Gastronomy is a multisensorial art performance, which I visualize and direct every single night.”
There are two ways to eat, a la carte and the Discovery tasting menu, and courses can be added to the Discovery or taken out of it. Service runs daily, 7.30pm to 1am. The restaurant says it buys locally and works sustainably, and ties both to tradition.
The rooms
Spondi has vaulted dining rooms and two terraces, the terraces Mediterranean in feel, and the rooms open onto a courtyard. The courtyard is a quiet one. There is a car park, the rooms are air-conditioned, cards are accepted, and pets are not admitted.
At the table
Langoustine is one of the ingredients Bignon holds closest, and it is never off the menu. In January 2026 it came as a sequence: the roasted tail, a brioche filled with langoustine, a claw glazed in langoustine butter, then a tartlet to close. Three aromatics run through the whole of it, fermented pine honey, kaffir lime and curry.
Foie gras appeared twice on the same menu, in two readings. One was a parfait, with pear, Japanese yuzushu liqueur and gavotte. The other was sautéed and served with a raw oyster, warm against cold. Sea bass came that month with gnocchi of anthotyro and spinach sauce, Meyer lemon and Greek saffron, and a green sauce of spinach and fig-leaf oil.
Bird and game carried the later courses. Pigeon came with crisp lettuce, umeboshi and ginger; venison with parsnip purée, girolle mushrooms and a redcurrant sauce. Cheese is wheeled to the table on a trolley, Greek and international, with bread baked in house. The dessert in January 2026 was Tahitian vanilla with caramelised brioche and hazelnut.
Seasonal ingredients lead the menu, though a few stay on it all year, crab and prawns among them, and lamb and chocolate.
The owner
Much of the restaurant’s character comes from Trastelis, and the chefs have changed around him. When Spondi opened, modern fine dining in Greece had no settled form, and the kitchen put traditional technique and contemporary ideas on the same plate. The Greek trade now reads it as the kitchen a generation of the city’s senior chefs trained in. In January 2026 the restaurant was preparing a run of celebratory dinners for the anniversary year, with international names cooking at them.
Who is this for
Spondi suits a guest who wants the whole evening to be the dinner, and who enjoys a kitchen that works in sequences, one ingredient turned several ways before the next arrives. It is a house on a residential street rather than a hotel dining room, so the mood is domestic rather than grand, and the courtyard takes the noise out of an Athens evening. A late table is normal here. It fits an anniversary, a first night in the city or a dinner meant to carry the conversation.
