Athens’ bakery counters have become places to linger over decisions. A glossy croissant or a cardamom bun? A slice of sourdough for later, or a warm cheese pie to eat before reaching the corner? Across the city, a growing cast of bakers and pastry chefs is giving French viennoiserie, Scandinavian baking, Greek favorites, and plant-based pastries its own interpretation, with as much attention paid to an everyday loaf as to the most elaborate cream-filled creation.
Our refreshed selection brings new arrivals alongside established favorites, with 16 addresses worth building a morning around. Roaring Koukaki is emerging as a particular draw for baked-goods lovers, with debonair Kolonaki close behind, but the pleasures stretch well beyond either neighborhood. Some counters reward a detour for one signature pastry; others make a convincing argument for becoming part of your daily routine.
01
Feelings
Pastry chef Alexandros Koniaris is behind one of Athens’ most talked-about bakeries, in a Koukaki address where daytime baking and evening dining belong to the same house. Morning is when the pastry counter does its work: sourdough plates, buttery buns, cookies, croissants, and sweets with a contemporary hand. The gianduja croissant is flaky and generous, the caramelized chocolate brioche has depth, and the miso white chocolate cookie shows why pastry chefs have become Athens’ new morning stars.
Anastasiou Zinni 34, Koukaki
02
Holy Llama
This fully vegan bakehouse in Syntagma brings plant-based pastry into the same conversation as the city’s butter-led bakeries. The team works without animal products, building its display around puffy croissant doughs, cruffins, buns, cakes, brunch plates, sandwiches, juices, smoothies, and organic coffee. The pistachio wonder wheel is the signature order, with flaky pastry and rich pistachio cream showing how far vegan technique has moved.
Nikis 23, Syntagma
03
No Crumbs
Pangrati has no shortage of bakeries, but this address has built a steady following through its bread, pastries, and a compact display that makes decisions difficult. Buttery croissants, crisp-crusted loaves, house-made chocolate bars, and seasonal bakes sit beside coffee in a warm, easygoing café setting. The breads carry nutty depth, the pastries arrive with crisp layers, and the sweet options feel generous without excess. It works for a morning coffee, a pastry on the spot, or a loaf taken home for breakfast.
Imittou 225, Pangrati
04
Solène
Pastry chef Alexandros Koufas, known from the Hotel Grande Bretagne and King George, gives this central Athens address its serious bakery credentials. His part of the project covers dough, bread, croissants, viennoiserie, and sweets, with the morning display case carrying the polish of a French-style café and the technical backbone of a hotel-trained pastry chef. Golden croissants, raspberry tarts, cinnamon rolls, artisan breads, savory pastries, baguettes, and sandwiches make it an inviting stop for pastries, coffee, or a light lunch.
Dragatsaniou 6, Athens
05
Moden
Pavlos Tsiolekas built this Pangrati pastry address around Scandinavian references, seasonal bakes, and open-kitchen visibility. The name is Danish for “mature.” Sourdough tsoureki, a sweet Greek bread scented with mahlepi, mastic, and orange, shares the counter with chocolate babka, cardamom buns, cinnamon rolls, and seasonal fruit tarts.
Pratinou 53 & Amaseias 6, Pangrati
06
Ugly Rolls Athens
Head pastry chef Antonis Prasinos gives this compact downtown bakery its technical signature, after a two-year development period built around pastry and cinnamon rolls. Rolls are shaped, brushed, baked, glazed, and served warm through a street window, with classic sugar-dusted or abundantly glazed versions beside tiramisu, lemon blueberry, apple crumble, minis, and a rich pistachio roll that has already gathered its own following.
Evripidou 9, Athens
07
Overoll
Founded by pastry chefs Alkis Zervas, Ioannis Kikiras, and Spyros Pappas, this croissanterie helped make laminated pastry a citywide obsession, and has since grown to around a dozen locations across Greece and Cyprus. The expansion hasn’t erased the founding idea: French-style croissants as a standalone subject, with butter, folding, fermentation, baking, and filling treated as the main event. Pistachio brings dense nut flavor, cheesecake with red fruits moves toward restaurant dessert territory, and the limited pulled pork collaboration with Starlight Burgers showed how far the croissant can travel between breakfast, pastry, and savory street food.
Praxitelous 27, Athens
08
Kora
Co-founded by Maria Alafouzou and pastry chef-baker Ianthi Michalaki, this Kolonaki bakery helped shift Athens toward long fermentation, sourdough, and serious viennoiserie, and now has a second address in Filothei’s historic Petrino kiosk. Michalaki’s background includes work in Copenhagen, and that northern European baking discipline is visible in the use of time, butter, grain, and fermentation. The pain au chocolat with Valrhona is crisp, with a rich chocolate filling, while savory pastries such as spianata, cheddar, and potato show how the same laminated base can move from breakfast to a satisfying savory bite.
Anagnostopoulou 44, Kolonaki
09
Paul
This French family bakery, established in 1889, brings a different kind of authorship to Athens: the continuity of a house style. The Panepistimiou branch stays close to the canon, with golden butter croissants and pain au chocolat made for those who want classic French bakery flavor without novelty.
Panepistimiou 10, Syntagma
10
Temps Perdu
Pastry chef Yiannis Vlasiou and baker Dimitris Dritsas built this croissanterie around butter, dough, and a focused counter, first in Piraeus and, more recently, with a second address in central Athens. The formula is direct and demanding: French butter with 84% fat, Greek nuts, Callebaut chocolate, and a short list of viennoiserie made with visible craft. Croissants, cinnamon rolls, and puff pastry braids with cinnamon are displayed on marble like finished objects, but the real story is technical. Laminated pastry here is treated as a discipline, with flavor coming through fat, fold, bake, and filling.
Athanasiou Axarlian 2, Syntagma
11
72H Artisanal Bakery
This bakery made time its main ingredient, starting with 72-hour maturation for its sourdough and extending the same logic to viennoiserie. At the corner of Mitropoleos and Patroou, sourdough loaves and layered croissants make an appealing pairing for the breakfast table.
Mitropoleos 27 & Patroou 9-11, Athens
12
Tromero Paidi
Founder Nikolaos Karagiorgos created an Ilisia bakery with a French-inspired artisan base and a strong bread reputation, but the pastry work deserves equal attention. The team uses high-quality ingredients, including Breton butter, free-range eggs, and natural sourdough starter, bringing technique into everyday neighborhood baking. The croissants are light, buttery, and properly layered, while the ham and cheese pie with airy pastry and tomato sauce shows the same approach applied to a Greek savory classic.
Papadiamantopoulou 30, Ilisia
13
Hygge
Swedish-born Anne Meurling, who grew up near Uppsala, brought Scandinavian baking to the border between Neapoli and Exarchia. After training with Danish baker Jesper Goetz, a Noma alumnus, she opened Hygge inside a former family-run bakery with roots in the 1960s. The counter works through Nordic comfort with an artisan hand: sourdough loaves, cinnamon buns, cardamom buns, cookies, Swedish sweets, sandwiches, coffee, and the house’s Scandi koulouri. Head baker Emmanouela Delatola runs the kitchen day to day.
Ippokratous 192, Neapoli-Exarchia
14
Varia
German brothers Cedric and Christopher von Halem, grandsons of the Danish designer Verner Panton, moved to Athens and built this Kolonaki bakery around the German bread they grew up eating and couldn’t find in Greece. Baker Johannes Guertner, from a fourth-generation baking family, and Florian Messerer round out the project, with organic flour imported from a small Bavarian mill and sourdough loaves left to rest for up to 80 hours. Rye with roasted seeds, spelt rolls with fig or olive, and rustic baguettes sit alongside the pretzels that have already become the signature order, their crust glossy, their crumb properly elastic. The open glass bakery lets customers watch the whole process, and Panton furniture threads a Danish design sensibility through the space.
Milioni 12, Kolonaki
15
Ouf Microbakery
This one-man operation from Michalis Bias, previously of Agia Paraskevi’s slow-fermentation bakery Tsofli, keeps things deliberately small: a handful of products made fresh each day rather than a full case of options. The daily savory tart changes constantly, stuffed focaccias and sourdough cinnamon rolls sell out early, and madeleines arrive in rotating apricot, chocolate, or lemon-lavender versions. The clear standout is a tyropita kourou built on French butter and PDO feta from a small producer, a Greek classic given the same technical attention as the bakery’s French-leaning pastries.
Veikou 27-29, Koukaki
16
Wagee the Baker
Athina Skouvaki, a Koukaki native who spent years in Australia and London, returned to the neighborhood she grew up in to open the bakery she always wished existed there. The name takes its cue from Ted, her dog, whose wagging tail became the shop’s unofficial mascot. Recipes by Panagiotis Tsiafos range from peynirli, boat-shaped savory pastries, with egg and handmade tomato sauce to hazelnut praline babka, cinnamon rolls in both classic and vegan peanut butter versions, and a Danish brioche with pastry cream and raspberry. Coffee comes from Area 51, with matcha and juices from Yum Tales rounding out the counter.
Falirou 36, Koukaki
Read more
Walk through Pangrati and Mets, from marble monuments to neighborhood cafés
Stay for lunch: Kolonaki’s top restaurants, bistros, and street-food stops
Find a quieter coffee stop in Athens’ stunning leafy courtyards

