Walking into Line Athens feels like stepping into a fever dream where Spanish potato dishes somehow end up in your Margarita glass – and trust me, it works better than you could ever imagine. This isn’t your typical Athens bar experience where you’re sipping overpriced cocktails while dodging tourist crowds. No, this is something entirely different, something that’s caught the attention of the global cocktail community and earned them the jaw-dropping title of 6th Best Bar in the World for 2024.
Just picture this scene: you’re sitting in what used to be an art gallery, surrounded by stark white walls and industrial fixtures, when the bartender slides you a drink that looks like a traditional Margarita but tastes like it was dreamed up by someone who decided that cocktail rules were merely suggestions. That first sip hits you with familiar citrus notes, followed by something your brain can’t quite place – until you realize you’re drinking potato water, ketchup, and mustard in perfect harmony with premium tequila. It sounds absolutely mad, doesn’t it? Yet here I am, telling you it was one of the most brilliant cocktails I’ve ever experienced.
Line Athens didn’t just stumble into greatness. In 2023, they grabbed the prestigious “Best New International Bar” award from the World’s 50 Best Bars organization, and now they’ve climbed even higher. The bar is the brainchild of Vasilis Kyritsis and Nikos Bakoulis, two names you might recognize from their previous success with The Clumsies, another Athens cocktail institution. They’ve partnered with Dimitris Dafopoulos from Three Cents to create something that goes way beyond mixing drinks – they’re essentially rewriting the rulebook on what a cocktail can be.
What Makes Line Athens the 6th Best Bar in the World?
The numbers speak for themselves, but they don’t tell the whole story. When Line Athens opened, Athens wasn’t exactly known as a global cocktail destination. Sure, we had great bars, but competing with London, New York, or Tokyo? That seemed like a stretch. Yet here we are, with a Greek bar sitting comfortably among the world’s finest, and after spending an evening there, I completely understand why.
The recognition didn’t happen overnight, though it might seem that way. The team behind Line Athens brought years of experience and a completely fresh perspective to the Athens bar scene. Kyritsis and Bakoulis had already proven themselves with The Clumsies, consistently ranked among the world’s top 50 bars, but Line Athens represents something different – a more focused, more experimental approach that’s captured the imagination of industry professionals worldwide.
What sets them apart isn’t just creativity for creativity’s sake. There’s serious technical skill behind every drink, combined with their Method of Anarchy philosophy – a way of working with ingredients and products in a “respectful and subversive” manner that emphasizes sustainability and experimentation. This isn’t some marketing gimmick but a genuine approach that respects traditional cocktail making while embracing fermentation and minimizing waste to create completely unexpected flavors.
Line Athens Venue and Location
Finding Line Athens requires stepping away from the usual Athens tourist circuit, but that’s part of what makes it special. The bar sits in a neighborhood that most visitors never see, away from the bustling streets around Syntagma Square and the ancient charm of Plaka. When I planned my visit, I wondered if the location might be inconvenient, but it turned out to be one of those happy discoveries where getting slightly lost leads to something extraordinary.
The Uber ride from central Athens cost exactly 6 euros and took about 15 minutes through streets that showed me a different side of the city. This isn’t the Athens of postcards and tourist guides – it’s the Athens where locals live and work, where industrial buildings sit next to small restaurants, where you might walk past Line Athens without realizing you’ve just passed one of the world’s best bars.
The building itself tells a story. What was once an art gallery has been transformed into something that honors both its artistic past and its cocktail present. The space feels deliberately minimal – those whitewashed walls and soaring ceilings create an almost gallery-like atmosphere where the cocktails become the art pieces. There’s an industrial honesty to the design that matches their approach to ingredients perfectly.
The layout works beautifully for different moods and group sizes. The indoor area centers around the bar itself, where you can watch the team work their magic with ingredients you’ve probably never seen in cocktails before. There’s also an outdoor terrace that offers a completely different vibe – more relaxed, perfect for those Athens evenings when the weather makes being inside feel like a waste. The whole space feels intentional rather than designed, if that makes sense. Nothing is there for show; everything serves the purpose of creating better drinks and better experiences.
The Method of Anarchy: Line Athens’ Revolutionary Cocktail Philosophy
Understanding Line Athens means understanding their Method of Anarchy, which sounds more chaotic than it actually is. This philosophy involves working with ingredients and products in a “respectful and subversive” manner, emphasizing sustainability and experimentation while embracing fermentation both literally and metaphorically. They’re not throwing ingredients together randomly – there’s serious method behind what might initially seem like madness, focused on minimizing waste and discovering entirely new flavor possibilities.
Their wine production deserves special attention because it’s central to understanding how Line Athens operates. They’re creating what they call “why-ins” – wines made without grapes, using fermentation techniques on ingredients that most people would never associate with wine making. These aren’t novelty drinks or gimmicks; they’re legitimate beverages that happen to challenge every assumption about what wine can be.
The house-made Symposium Vermouth exemplifies this approach perfectly. Traditional vermouth production involves fortified wine infused with herbs and spices, but Line Athens takes the concept further. Their version maintains the essential character that makes vermouth work in cocktails while introducing flavors that come from their unique fermentation processes. When I tasted it in their Negroni, it was immediately recognizable as vermouth while being completely unlike any vermouth I’d tried before.
This philosophy extends to every aspect of their operation. Seasonal ingredients aren’t just sourced locally; they’re transformed through fermentation, distillation, or other processes that concentrate and alter their flavors. What you taste in their cocktails often represents months of experimentation and development, turning simple ingredients into something completely new.
Line Athens Cocktail Menu: Where Anarchy Meets Excellence
The menu at Line Athens is refreshingly focused. Rather than offering fifty different cocktails, they present a carefully curated selection that showcases their philosophy and techniques. Each drink tells a story about their approach to ingredients and their relationship with traditional cocktail making.
Their wine-focused approach becomes clear when you see how many of their cocktails incorporate their house-made wines and fermented ingredients. This isn’t just about using unique ingredients for the sake of being different – it’s about creating flavor profiles that simply couldn’t exist any other way. The fermentation processes they use create compounds and tastes that you can’t buy from any supplier.
The seasonal nature of their menu means that what you experience during one visit might be completely different from what you’d find a few months later. This keeps the bar exciting for repeat visitors while ensuring that they’re always working with ingredients at their peak.
The Unconventional Margarita: Spanish Patatas Bravas Revolution
When the bartender described this drink to me, I’ll admit I was skeptical. A Margarita inspired by Spanish Patatas Bravas, complete with ketchup, mustard, and potato water? It sounded like one of those cocktails that exists purely for Instagram shock value. I was completely wrong.
The drink arrives looking like a perfectly normal Margarita – clear, served in proper glassware, garnished simply. Nothing about its appearance hints at the flavor journey you’re about to experience. That first sip delivers familiar Margarita notes – the agave, the citrus, the salt – but then something else develops on your palate. There’s a savory depth that shouldn’t work but absolutely does, a richness that makes you rethink everything you thought you knew about sweet versus savory in cocktails.
The potato water adds a subtle earthiness that grounds the drink without making it heavy. The ketchup and mustard – ingredients that should overwhelm delicate cocktail flavors – instead provide layers of umami and complexity that enhance rather than dominate. It’s technical wizardry disguised as playfulness, a perfect example of how Line Athens uses seemingly ridiculous concepts to create genuinely brilliant drinks.
This cocktail embodies their Method of Anarchy better than any explanation could. It respects the Margarita’s essential character while completely subverting your expectations about what ingredients belong in cocktails. After finishing it, I understood why this bar has gained such recognition so quickly. Anyone can make a good Margarita, but it takes genuine vision to make one that changes how you think about cocktails altogether.
The Negroni Reimagined with Symposium Vermouth
The Negroni has become something of a benchmark for serious cocktail bars. It’s a simple three-ingredient drink that reveals everything about a bartender’s skill and a bar’s approach to ingredients. Line Athens’ version uses Fird’s Gin and their house-made Symposium Vermouth, along with bitter aperitifs that complete the traditional Negroni structure.
What makes this drink special isn’t radical reimagining but rather the elevation of each component. The Symposium Vermouth brings flavors that commercial vermouths simply can’t match because it represents months of development and fermentation processes unique to Line Athens. It maintains the sweet, herbal qualities that make vermouth work in a Negroni while adding layers of complexity that reveal themselves gradually as you drink.
The balance between the gin, vermouth, and bitter elements creates a Negroni that honors the cocktail’s Italian heritage while showcasing Line Athens’ production capabilities. Each sip reveals different aspects of their house-made vermouth – sometimes the fermentation character comes forward, sometimes the herbal elements dominate, sometimes you notice subtle flavors that you can’t quite identify but that make the drink more interesting.
This cocktail demonstrates how Line Athens approaches classic drinks. Rather than deconstructing them completely, they identify the essential elements that make each cocktail work and then elevate those elements through their unique ingredients and techniques. The result is immediately recognizable as a Negroni while being completely distinctive from any other Negroni you’ve tried.
The Alexander: Coffee Cocktail Innovation
As someone who seeks out coffee cocktails wherever I travel, I was particularly excited about Line Athens’ interpretation of the Alexander. Their version uses Naked Malt Whisky as the base, combined with Greek coffee, white chocolate, beetroot, buttermilk, and caramelized yogurt. On paper, it sounds like too many ingredients competing for attention, but the execution creates something remarkably cohesive.
The Greek coffee connection adds cultural significance to what could have been just another creative cocktail. Coffee culture runs deep in Greece, and incorporating it into their cocktail program shows respect for local traditions while pushing boundaries. The coffee doesn’t dominate the drink but provides a foundation that ties the other ingredients together.
The white chocolate and caramelized yogurt create a richness reminiscent of an Irish Coffee, while the buttermilk adds a subtle tang that prevents the drink from becoming too sweet or heavy. The beetroot – an ingredient I never would have associated with coffee cocktails – contributes an earthy depth that makes the drink more complex without being identifiable as beetroot.
What impressed me most was how the cocktail maintained its own identity while clearly drawing inspiration from both Espresso Martinis and Irish Coffees. It’s not trying to be either of those drinks; instead, it takes elements from both traditions and creates something entirely new. The texture is particularly noteworthy – creamy without being thick, rich without being overwhelming.
Why Line Athens Deserves Its Global Recognition
The innovation at Line Athens goes beyond novelty. Their techniques and approaches are being studied and adapted by bars around the world because they represent genuine advances in cocktail making. The fermentation processes they use, their approach to zero-waste production, their integration of wine making with cocktail creation – these aren’t just interesting experiments; they’re pointing toward the future of the industry.
Their impact on Athens has been equally significant. The city’s cocktail scene was already strong, but Line Athens has elevated its international profile in ways that benefit the entire hospitality industry. Cocktail enthusiasts now include Athens on their travel itineraries specifically because of bars like Line Athens, bringing tourism revenue and international attention to the city’s creative community.
The recognition from World’s 50 Best Bars isn’t just about individual achievement; it’s validation of a completely different approach to cocktail making. In an industry that can sometimes feel focused on perfecting established techniques, Line Athens proves that there’s still room for genuine innovation and experimentation.
Final Thoughts of Line Athens
Line Athens represents everything I love about travel and cocktails – the discovery of something completely unexpected that changes how you think about familiar things. That Unconventional Margarita didn’t just taste good; it expanded my understanding of what cocktails can be. The Negroni with Symposium Vermouth showed me how traditional drinks can be elevated through innovative ingredients. The Alexander proved that coffee cocktails still have unexplored territory worth discovering.
As one of the absolute highlights of my Athens experience, Line Athens deserves every accolade it has received. The Method of Anarchy isn’t just a catchy phrase – it’s a genuine philosophy that’s producing some of the world’s most interesting cocktails. The staff’s passion, knowledge, and warmth create an atmosphere that extends far beyond professional service into genuine hospitality.
Athens has always been a city where old and new coexist, where ancient traditions meet contemporary innovation. Line Athens embodies this perfectly, respecting cocktail traditions while fearlessly exploring new possibilities. They’re not just changing how we think about cocktails; they’re showing us what happens when creativity, technical skill, and genuine passion come together in one extraordinary place.
Here’s to Line Athens and their continued success. They’ve earned their place among the world’s best bars, and more importantly, they’ve shown us that there are still new frontiers to explore in the world of cocktails. The night I spent there will remain one of my favorite bar experiences anywhere in the world, and I suspect it will be the same for anyone who makes the journey to experience their Method of Anarchy firsthand.
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