Where to Have the Best Tripe Soup in Athens? Oinomageireio Epirus (est.1898), Athens, Greece

The Best Leg Trotter and Tripe Soup Restaurant in Athens: Oinomageireio Epirus (est.1898)

If life offers you tripe soup in a city, drink it. The only reason you might not do this is because you don’t like offal. Also, if every tripe lover finds a restaurant serving tripe soup in their hometown, they will try it. This is one of the immutable, fundamental laws of the universe. A good tripe lover recognizes whether the tripe is good or not as soon as he sees the photo. However, this is what happened to us. There are several tripe soup restaurants in Athens, but let us introduce you to the oldest and the best: Oinomageireio Epirus. It is an artisan restaurant serving in the meat market (Varvakeios) since 1898.

When we say artisan restaurant, we mean that you can find the most authentic Greek flavors in the most folkloric form here. In other words, as soon as you enter the restaurant, you can order the tray dishes served daily in the showcase on the left, or if you are a tripe soup fanatic like us, you can sit directly at your table and order a delicious tripe soup with garlic and vinegar that you can pour into it later. By the way, Oinomageireio Epirus is famous for its soups. So don’t hesitate to sit directly at the table and say, “We came here for tripe soup!“!

For example, the goat meat soup they make with Aegean herbs, the legendary fish soup with huge fish meat, chicken soup, and snail soup, if you come across it. But the main event here is the tripe soup, friends. Try tripe soup mixed with foot trotter (patsa) if you want more cholesterol. (They understand very well when you say “mix.”)

Where to Eat the Best Fried Calamari and Shrimp in Athens? Restaurant Scholarhio, Plaka, Athens, Greece

The place closes at 19:30. There are nostalgic pictures of celebrities on the walls. The only celebrity that interests us here is, of course, Anthony Bourdain. With the sad atmosphere created by Anthony Bourdain, the pioneer of the world’s food and drink gusto, ate here, we wait for our mixed soups with tripe and trotters to arrive. Of course, we order a “Greek salad” with our orders. When we turn our heads from the window of the place, which suddenly separates us from the meat market outside with its ambiance, we see the butcher butchering meat in the shop in front of us. Once again, we realize what a mystical-grotesque restaurant we are in, and we are thankful for the place we are in. (By the way, those who do not have this awareness cannot enjoy anywhere they go!)

That’s when things happen, and we are quickly served tripe soup mixed with tripe and trotters.

For those who know, it is a tradition to color and personalize soups like tripe soup at the table. We add hot chili peppers, black pepper powder, garlic juice, and vinegar according to our taste and prepare soups like missiles. Thus, our offal soups, which we decorate like a bride, are ready to delight our stomachs with bitter, sour, fragrant, and sticky notes.

And here come the spoons dipped into the soups. We eat them as if we are in ecstasy.

Delicious. If we lived in Athens, we would be regulars at Oinomageireio Epirus(primarily for the soups, of course), and so would the locals. Otherwise, it would not have been possible for this place to survive until 1898.

Greeks call trotter soup “Patsas.” They also call tripe soup” Skembés.” In the Balkans, Greece and Turkey, tripe soup is considered the “national soup”. We have already tried and written about a perfect “Tripe Soup Restaurant” in Thessaloniki. (Name : Tsarouchas Restaurant) We have also mentioned another Turkish-owned morning soup restaurant in Komotini. (Name : Trakya Lokantası, Rıdvan Usta) As we can understand, Greece’s soup culture is also prominent in food and beverage activities.

Imagine that Evliya Çelebi mentioned in his 17th-century Seyahatnamesi that there were 300 tripe restaurants in Istanbul alone. This means that soup sellers dominated the restaurant industry around the world.

The French word “Restaurant” comes from the word “Restore,” this word enters our vocabulary from soup restaurants.

In short, dear eating friend, soup is healing. Soup is people. Soup is abundant. It is a very authentic food. Soup has a place in every society.

Sometimes, no other food can replace soup.

It’s the same in Oinomageireio Epirus. No matter what you want to eat with it. But make sure you eat the soup.

Goodbye.

Oinomageireio Epirus (est.1898)
Filopimenos 4, Athina 105 51, Yunanistan
Tel: +302103240773