18 m wooden longliner · Captain Stelios Petrakis
Aphroessa
Mainly gilthead, sea bream and dentex. Stelios fishes the bank east of the port and will not go out in a meltemi over six, which is why the gilthead is sometimes two euros more.
Alexandroupoli · Thrace · since 1978
What the boats brought in this morning.
A family-run fish tavern on the working pier. The lighthouse is across the water, the dawn auction is fifty paces from our door, and the kitchen opens at half past twelve.
The board
Chalked at eleven. Sold by two.
Whatever the three boats landed, plus what we bought at the auction. Prices move with the weather; we write them the way the fishermen say them.
- Whole gilthead tsipoura €24 / kg From the Aphroessa. 600–800 g, charcoal, lemon, oregano.
- Anchovies gavros €11 / kg Off the Niki. Marinated in vinegar and oil. Eat them with your fingers.
- Octopus chtapodi €17 Sun-dried at the pier, charcoal-grilled, potato purée and capers.
- Sea bream lithrini €26 / kg From the Maria-T. Salt-baked whole, opened at the table.
- Mussels mydia €12 Rope-grown at Maronia. Steamed with ouzo, garlic, lemon.
- Bonito palamida €19 Cured into lakerda for forty days, or grilled rare with green olive oil.
Our story
Three generations. Three boats. The same building.
Vassilis Karavelas opened a single-room ouzeri facing the working pier in 1978. His daughter Sofia took the kitchen in 2003; her brother Yiorgos runs the front of house and the boats. The room has grown twice, both times into the building next door.
The model has not changed. Three trusted boats — the Aphroessa, the Maria-T and the Niki — hold a standing order for whatever is best on the morning’s catch. The rest we buy at the dawn auction, fifty paces away. We make our own taramosalata, cure our own lakerda, pickle our own gavros, and bake the bread.
We do not say “fresh”. We say “off the Aphroessa at six this morning”.
The boats
We buy from three, and we name them.
We do not buy from trawlers under seventeen metres, because the bycatch is wrong. These three have had a standing order with us for longer than most of our staff have been alive.
17 m gillnetter · Captain Theodoris Mavrommatis
Maria-T
Best for sea bream, bonito and sole. Theodoris keeps the shallowest ground and lands earliest — his crates are usually the first through our door at half past five.
22 m purse seiner · Captain Aris Karaiskos
Niki
The entire small-pelagic family: anchovies, sardines, mackerel. When Aris has a good night the anchovies are eleven euros a kilo and we do not apologise for putting them on every table.
The morning
From the boat to the plate, in five hours.
-
05:30
Yiorgos at the pier
The standing-order crates come off the boats and onto a hand-cart. Fifty paces, no refrigerated van, no middleman.
-
07:00
The auction
Anything we still need — shellfish, sardines, the occasional rarity — is bought here, in the open, at the price called.
-
08:30
The ice-board
Fish are gutted, gilled and laid on crushed ice in the cold-room. Sofia decides the menu standing over them.
-
11:00
The catch board
Yiorgos chalks the board at the door and posts the same list online.
-
12:30
Service opens
The bread is out of the oven, the charcoal is at temperature, the mezedes are plated.
Mezedes
The table before the fish.
Made here, most of them slowly. The bread, the lakerda and the rule about the wine do not change with the weather.
- Despina’s taramosalata €7 Cod roe, lemon, olive oil, white onion. Made every morning.
- House lakerda €12 Forty-day cured bonito, sliced thin, capers, oil.
- Pickled anchovies €11 Vinegar, oil, garlic, parsley. Per kilo, and worth it.
- Charred green peppers €5 Aleppo, salt, lemon. Off the charcoal, blistered.
- Saganaki of Thracian kaseri €9 From Soufli, fried in olive oil, lemon, oregano.
- Octopus on charcoal €17 Sun-dried, lemon, capers, potato purée.
Wine, tsipouro, ouzo
We pour Greek, with very little argument.
A short, opinionated list. Tsipouro from Tirnavos, ouzo from Plomari and Mytilini, Assyrtiko and Malagousia by the glass, and no spirits we would not drink ourselves. Water is free and comes without being asked for.
From the cold-room
Three things we will send to your house.
We ship within Greece, and to the EU on request. Everything is cured, salted or pressed here, or by someone whose name we know.
Cured lakerda, 250 g
€19
Forty days, not thirty. Bonito, sea salt, olive oil. Ships January to April.
House taramosalata, 250 g
€11
Cod roe, lemon, olive oil. Refrigerated; ships year-round.
Soufli olive oil, 500 ml
€18
From a small grove behind the village. Unfiltered, pressed in November.
The regulars
What people say when they come back.
We came on our honeymoon. We came back for our anniversaries. Sofia served us the same gilthead, with the same lemon, on a Sunday in April. Our grandchildren now know the lighthouse from the corner table.
The Theodorakis familyRegulars since 1981, three generations
I drove eight hundred kilometres for the lakerda alone. It was worth every kilometre. Sofia let me into the cold-room to see the cure. The fortieth day is real.
Antonis BrentasAthens
I have eaten in fish taverns from Burgas to Rhodes. This is the only one where the waiter knew the captain of the boat his fish came from, and pronounced his name with an apology that he was in a bad mood today, the meltemi.
Anastasia PolovouSofia, Bulgaria
Visit
Fifty paces from the auction, across from the lighthouse.
Reservations are encouraged from June to September and on every Sunday lunch. Walk-ins are always seated, eventually. We close one Tuesday a month for staff dinner — the date is on the door and on the hours page.
- Address
- Limeniou Embarmonti 14, 68132 Alexandroupoli
- Telephone
- +30 25510 36492
- Lunch
- 12:30–16:30, daily
- Dinner
- 19:00–00:30, Sunday to 18:00
- Terrace
- 40 seats, vine-shaded, May to October
- Parking
- Free on the pier after 19:00
The catch board, by email
One email, six mornings a week, around eleven.
Yiorgos sends what is on the board and what is worth coming for. No marketing, no offers, no Sundays.