Delta Restaurant (** Athens, Greece)

Had a delightful evening at Delta, a new-ish tasting menu in Athens. It’s housed in a beautiful campus that includes the national library and opera house. The restaurant is gorgeous, with trees in large planters that hang from the ceiling. Service was kind and knowledgeable, and servers seemed excited to share the dishes. It’s a very experimental menu, with both Nordic influences and a lot of tromp l’oeil. The ingredients use mostly local Greek produce and the restaurant highlights their goal of sustainability. All of this leads to major Michelin bait. Good thing is that while some dishes didn’t do it for me, on a whole it was a delicious experience, with some very novel techniques. Even the dishes that weren’t to my taste were interesting and showed reach for the kitchen, and the reasons I didn’t enjoy them came down to mostly personal taste. The dishes that did hit were absolutely delicious and wildly creative.

Courses were as follows:

1) a mushroom and nut tartar flavored with chamomile on a crispy cabbage base: strong start with a tasty amuse that had some deep chamomile flavor that read purely savory
2) Second course was a fake Calla flower filled with confit pigeon leg and topped with bergamot foam- wildly delicious with fresh citrus mingling with savory meat and the “flower” petal acting as a delightful base
3) Grilled deer covering fermented artichoke and fermented blueberry with oxalis flowers- interesting dish with lots of strong flavors- I would have loved it if not for the strong fermented funk that’s not my cup of tea- if you love lactofermented stuff you’ll love this
4) “Leaf” of dehydrated pear filled with grilled iberico pork and sprayed with pine- one of the most delicious things I’ve ever eaten, a textural and flavorful dish of light and meaty happiness- ate like a fresh but still savory delight
5) Grilled corn on fermented buckwheat- another knockout, this ate like the best corn on the cob ever, and the buckwheat base had a meatiness to it, like what seitan should be
6) Bread coarse was shaped like a porcini mushroom and flavored with aged vegetables, blackened apple, a variety of herbs and brushed with aromatics, served with a foamy bone marrow crème anglaise: another stupidly delicious course that was beautiful too- bread was intensely flavored and the bone marrow foam added even more richness, all tempered with this bright green dehydrated gremolata paste hidden underneath the “mushroom” cap. It tasted like the best pizza bagel I’ve ever had
7) Cod made to look like a scallop, with fresh flowers covering the orange “skirt”- the skirt was actually fermented and grilled plums- this was a good dish, very light, with good flavors off the cod, plums, and flowers- but felt like it could use a light more salt on the fish itself . Good but not amazing.
8) Sweetbreads covered with koji inoculated grains to look like a fuzzy bird- a really creative dish that looked amazing but was not to my taste. The mold was my favorite part, but the sweetbreads were way too heavy for me.
9) Possibly the best dish of the night for me- a slowly caramelized and dehydrated apple filled with picanha steak and covered in beef garum and Demi glace. This was mind blowing in that the apple had just as much meatiness as the beef with full apple flavor but no sweetness, so it tasted like a savory apple with just immensely deep umami.
10) Pigeon breast glazed with fermented cherry and berries with endive and a pigeon sauce- a nice final savory dish with good grilled flavor . Not mind blowing but certainly good
11) First dessert was a puffed sugar Mille feuille made to look like a sunflower, filled with a cream flavored with chestnuts, sunflower praline, and caramelized puff pastry- very tasty and a smart dish to use puff pastry to flavor the cream- was very tasty

12) final two desserts (one was a celebratory cake for my special occasion):

12a) the cake was fully edible (even the candle which was made of walnut oil). It was nice but could have had a bit more flavor and diversity of texture
12b) An edible butterfly, this was the best dessert. The wings were crunchy and acidic with a perfect snap and the body was light and creamy with a good acidity- as nice to eat as it was to look at. Was filled with beeswax cream and cherry.

Great meal overall!

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