Reporting from Athens, Greece — In the Athens I knew when I first moved here almost 20 years ago, the taverna was still an institution. That was in the early 1990s, before a stock market boom, the Olympics, and the return of a generation of young, cosmopolitan Greeks who had left to study abroad and came back home with a taste for sushi and risotto.
That was then — when Greeks shucked tradition for the excitement of the new, rendering the once-sacrosanct taverna obsolete. This is now, however, an era humbled by the sobering reality of an economic crisis of herculean proportions. Ever the optimist, I see a bright side. In this often ridiculously priced restaurant city, dining establishments are responding to the times.
In the last two years, Athens has seen a resurgence of the taverna. I am not talking about old places that suddenly shook off the dust and lighted up their signs, but a whole new generation of reasonably priced tavernas that have learned something from the country's recent (and ritzier) past, pay heed to design and presentation and are reworking the classics with a twist.
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