Eat after Midnight and Confess at Mavili Canteen

Yiannis makes sandwiches that feed your soul

Should you find yourself enjoying a drink at one of the historic bars of Mavili Square, a well-known piazza near the American Embassy and Athens Concert Hall that provides relaxing weekday evenings and buzzing weekend nights, you may well end up partaking in the ritual of the obligatory sandwich from the local canteen. But let’s take things from the beginning.

A fountain, old apartment blocks dating to the 50s, business offices and little bars that have been there for 25 years or so make up the backdrop for this charming square that is both rock ‘n’ roll and aristocratic, entertaining a most diverse group of people. You can see well-dressed gentlemen promising themselves just the one standing drink to the more serious imbibers and connoisseurs of the evening beverage. Observe artists spending company with their friends, media types and fashionistas. Nice, humble girls who dream of becoming, perhaps, famous actresses, or former actresses who have decided to just be nice, humble, girls. Those that survive to the “after-hours” eventually, and inevitably, congregates at Mavili Canteen, once located in an old camper van on cinder blocks and now moved into a permanent home, selling so-called vromiko since 1989.

Pause: Vromiko or “dirty” is what we call the greasy midnight sandwich that can contain a Frankfurter sausage (the most popular choice), souvlaki or chicken nuggets, coupled with cabbage, carrot, onions, French fries, ketchup, mayo and mustard. The sign reads: “The cleanest dirty” and, unsurprisingly, such concoctions are not for weak constitutions!

Play: While he prepares my “chicken nuggets with everything,” Yiannis tells me a story. This is his way, as a connoisseur of Athenian nightlife and absolutely amiable by nature: “After the 80s, when Saturday was established as a day off, the city’s nightlife began to flourish and gradually all sorts of ideas for different nighttime pastimes began to emerge. Since ’89, when I set up shop, I have seen newlywed brides smeared with mustard after their receptions, long-lost army buddies meeting after years in front of my canteen and a whole host of others you’d really have to see to believe. The Mavili Canteen vromiko is Athens’ food for the soul. This is, perhaps, the most interesting or fascinating aspect of this job. You hear your clients’ problems. Everyone opens up when they drink. The bartender, the waiter, the kiosk owner and the taxi driver become confessors after a few drinks. When your true love leaves you, who do you confide in? Your mother? She’ll just say ‘I told you so.’ No, you tell the specialist! And so they do; they tell me everything! And if they’re really hurting, I may even treat them!”

WHERE & WHEN
3 Soutsou, Mavili Square, all night long. Prices start at 3.40 euros for a hot dog and 4.20 euros for a souvlaki, with 0.60 euros for extras. Banter and delightful stories by Yiannis: free.

Photo: Irini Vourloumi