Lunch: Diporto 
Hidden beneath Athens’ Central Market, Dipórto is the kind of place you’d never find unless someone told you about it. There’s no sign outside this empty neoclassical building scribbled in graffiti, just a stone staircase leading down through a metal trapdoor into a basement taverna that feels untouched by time. It’s been there since 1887.
Inside, barrels line the walls, there are paper tablecloths and wooden chairs. We sit down and the waiter puts bread straight on the paper tablecloth and places an orange aluminium jug of cloudy retsina on the table. He does not speak any English, there are no pleasantries or menu, he just tells us what he has, and we nod our heads and a few minutes later there are plates of Greek salad, chickpea soup swimming in delicious olive oil, fava, giant beans and freshly fried sardines on the table. It was the most sublime food we had tasted in years. If I lived nearby, this is where I would eat lunch every day till I die!

Dinner: Taverna Oikonomou
Recommended by my friend Scott Wilson, who moved to Athens, it was so good we ate here every night. Situated in the quiet sleepy residential area of Petralona, it’s been there since 1930. Simple traditional Greek food cooked from local ingredients.