To Drami

The place

A drami was the smallest weight a Greek grocer measured in — a little over three grams, a four-hundredth of an oka — and buying something me to drami meant buying it in the smallest amount worth weighing. The restaurant takes both the name and the room from that world: shelves run floor to ceiling with tinned tomatoes, jars, and pasta in paper bags, the lighting is enamel and brass, and the fit-out reads as an Athenian pantopoleio of sixty years ago with the tables moved in among the stock.

The cooking is neo-traditional rather than strictly taverna. Mezes come in generous, share-the-middle-of-the-table portions, with a run of dishes that lean Anatolian and Constantinopolitan alongside the familiar Greek ones — filo pastries, meatballs with smoked cheese, gyros, and fried potatoes cut on the spot. It is the kind of room a table of six books rather than a couple looking for a quiet dinner, and it is open from midday until late.