Varoulko Seaside stands on the Mikrolimano marina in Piraeus, at the water’s edge, with the moored fishing boats in front of it and the coast of the Athens Riviera opening beyond. The address is Akti Koumoundourou 54, Mikrolimano, 185 33 Piraeus, close enough to central Athens and to the port itself that either makes an easy evening of it.
Fish and seafood, on the day’s catch, is what the kitchen does, so the carte is settled in part each morning at the markets rather than written once and left. Sea bass, red mullet, grouper, tuna, shrimp and prawns all come through it, depending on the boats.
Lefteris Lazarou was born in 1952 to a father who cooked on ships, and he never considered another trade. At 15 he was spending his summers in ship kitchens beside him. The cruise ships taught him the most, because feeding a different set of passengers every day meant bending Greek cooking to habits that were not Greek. What he wanted in the end was a boat on land, a kitchen the waves could not rock. He opened Varoulko in October 1987, in Piraeus, and the house has stood on his cooking ever since.
The kitchen now
Lazarou is Chef Patron, and Yiannis Yfantidis is Head Chef over a menu of Varoulko signatures. Yfantidis spent 12 years in that kitchen before he took it, and trained outside it with Alain Ducasse in Paris and in Saint Moritz. The room has been renovated and reopened on the same arm of water, with a new perimeter wing that runs along the waterline.
What comes to the table
Two of the main courses are built on whatever arrived that morning. Each is a fish fillet at 38 euro, one dressed with beetroot, green beans, framboise, black garlic and sesame, the other with baby gem, artichokes, carrots, fennel and a crab-flavoured yogurt. Whole fish is grilled and sold by weight, at 115 euro the kilo.
Around the fillets the carte runs to a fish soup on stonefish broth with white grouper, oysters with apricot sorbet, sea bass carpaccio with kumquat and red Florina pepper, a grouper patty under Florina pepper cream, and grilled squid with avocado, broccolini and ink. Orzo comes with shrimp, sweet wine from Limnos and crushed red chilli; paccheri with shrimp, grouper and lemongrass. Several dishes are marked vegetarian, among them a wheat risotto with leek and a herbal chlorophyll sauce, a risotto of wild artichoke and black truffle, and a peach soup with Cretan soft cheese and almond. Each dessert is built on one thing: lemon, watermelon, chocolate.
The degustation menu moves through oyster with apricot, red shrimp ceviche with ossetra caviar, poached scallops, squid and tuna, and closes on mignardises, at 135 euro. One set of hours covers the whole week (Daily, 13.00 to 00.00), so a visitor can take a simple lunch at the water or sit down to the fine dining menu.
Lazarou away from the stove
He has taught Greek cooking at a cooking school in the United States, and has carried it to Argentina, Japan and most of the European capitals, presenting Greek food and Greek olive oil as he went. The President of the Hellenic Republic picked him in March 2021 to cook the palace reception that marked two centuries since the Greek revolution of 1821.
Who is this for
Anyone who wants Greek seafood at its most considered, and is content to let the morning’s boats decide the order. The dining room is worked in blues and earthy tones, with paintings on the walls, natural materials and a good deal of restraint, so it carries a quiet table for two as easily as an occasion. The marina keeps an atmosphere of its own after dark. Go with time in hand, and ask what came in.
