For stand-out seafood dishes served in sumptuous surroundings, try Travolta in a most unexpected corner of Athens, the suburb of Peristeri

In the 1977 film, ‘Saturday Night Fever,’ John Travolta strutted down a Brooklyn thoroughfare successful the movie “Saturday Night Fever “ to the bushed of ‘Stayin’ Alive’—confident and bold that his each measurement and creation determination was each spot arsenic crisp and chill arsenic anyone’s from upscale Manhattan  conscionable crossed the river.

Meet Anesti Lambropoulos, a cook successful Peristeri, a populous suburb successful northwestern Athens, who has achieved a akin vibe successful the culinary country of Athens with his gourmet seafood eatery, Travolta, named aft the strutting Hollywood prima known for his fancy footwork connected the creation floor.

• A debased key, charming, and affable antheral with a disarmingly lukewarm smile, Lambropoulos welcomes guests and encourages them to sensation his originative dishes with a hint of pridefulness that isn’t boastful successful the least—though the dishes helium whips up are surely worthy of it.

Travolta is the benignant of edifice you’d expect to find successful the astir posh neighborhoods of Athens. But present successful the bosom of suburban Peristeri, a lively vicinity but 1 not needfully known for gourmet restaurants, lies a astonishing treat:  a seafood taverna with an imaginative paper that adds twists to accepted meat-based Greek favorites, specified arsenic moussaka oregon “kontosouvli” (skewered chunks of marinated meat).

• Here the crushed beef successful the moussaka is made from a crushed seafood substance served with bechamel and layers of eggplant and potatoes and  the nutrient  in Chef Anesti’s kontosouvli is replaced with succulent hunks of calamari, served connected a skewer of people and served implicit squid ink, chili oil, and bladed slivers of reddish capsicum and onions.

Lambropoulos besides offers up a astonishing mentation of “spetsofai”—slices of savory pork sausage served with a affluent herb and bulb condiment meant to beryllium scooped up with bread.

Lambropoulos brilliajty replaces the pork with crushed cuttlefish, creating a unsocial crockery that could adjacent fool a pescatarian into reasoning helium oregon she is eating meat.

Chef and co-owner of “Travolta Anestis Lambropoulos. Photo Hellas Journal

The cook adjacent magically whips up a savory mentation of “mille feuille”—the layered pastry filled with cream.  You heard that correctly, mille feuille. Instead of pick and pastry though, present you get bladed fried filets of sardines, layered connected apical of 1 different and separated with a prima dried herb paste.

• Other originative dishes, each made with superbly caller ingredients:  oversea bream carpaccio with thyme, lemon, and olive oil, grilled filet of reddish mullet, smoked eel served implicit a creamy fava, an orzo crockery made with squid ink, and an astonishing “fish and chips”— pieces of “tsipoura” (bream) fried successful other virgin olive lipid placed successful the mediate of the remains of a perfectly bladed fried food and served with a chipotle dipping sauce.

Lambropoulos opened the lushly decorated abstraction with his concern partners, Vaggelis and Spiros Liakos, who besides ain Base Grill known for its nutrient dishes, successful 2012, a fewer blocks distant from his father’s seafood taverna that carried the aforesaid name.

His father, Lakis, returned to his location basal successful Peristeri aft galore years successful 1978, opening a sandwich store first, and past a accepted seafood taverna with the sanction Lakis O Travolta.

• Why the name?  To grant his idol and due to the fact that everyone said helium danced similar the star.  His lad kept the catchy name, but simplified it. The nautical ambience excessively is arsenic refreshing arsenic the menu—pleasantly lighted and tasteful.  And the plot outside, shaded by gangly mulberry trees.

The mastery of “Travolta” is that Lambropoulos managed to make specified a high-end eatery with notable dishes successful this improbable country of Athens acold from the metropolis center, attracting dignitaries, politicians, diplomats, and celebrities astir each nighttime of the week.

He is entertaining the thought of opening a sister edifice connected the Athens riviera, but helium acknowledges that what makes Travolta truthful peculiar is its location. You conscionable don’t expect to find specified imaginative good eating here.

• “That I’ve accomplished this successful Peristeri makes each the difference,” helium says with a smile.

Now each that would marque the communicative of Peristeri’s Travolta implicit would beryllium a sojourn from its namesake.  Hey Mr. Travolta, Chef Anesti is waiting for you!