Known for its excellent fish and seafood, the port town of Piraeus, just west of Athens, was not until recently a destination for meat lovers. But that all changed a year ago with the opening of Bar Bee Kiou. Situated in the center of town, a two-minute walk from Zea Harbor, this tiny eatery is the ideal place to cap off a promenade around picturesque Pasalimani.
Bar Bee Kiou (ΜΠΑΡ ΜΠΕΕ ΚΙΟΥ) is relaxed and cozy, with just a handful of wooden pub-style tables inside and a few more on the sidewalk. Chef-owner Michalis Mantzouranis calls it a steakhouse (the middle syllable is the Greek onomatopoeia for the bleat of a sheep), but we’ve been returning nearly once a week to taste new versions of the burger. In fact, one rendition, the platter of beef patties with eggs and feta, made it to our Best Bites of 2013 list. At Bar Bee Kiou, everything is handmade, and you can taste the care and attention that Mantzouranis gives to the food he serves. Every morning, he gets freshly baked sweet buns from a local bakery (they collaborated with him on a recipe just for the restaurant). He prepares all the sauces by himself, goes to the market for fresh ingredients and constantly tests new flavors.
First things first: among the appetizers, one of our favorites is the eggs with sucuk (sausage) and pastourma (dried beef) covered with homemade red sauce, paprika and Tabasco – definitely not for the heat-averse. To balance out the richness of that dish, we order either the “marinated” or pistachio salad. The former is Mantzouranis’s refreshing version of coleslaw, made with white and red cabbage, carrot, apple, dill, red pepper and celery, all finely chopped and lightly bound with a yogurt sauce. The latter is composed of greens (lettuce, lolla rossa, arugula), red pepper and a zippy honey-mustard sauce. It gets its name from the balls of soft white cheeses (manouri, anthotyro, xinomyzithra) covered with ground pistachio – the renowned protected-designation variety from Aegina Island, no less.
If French fries are your craving, Bar Bee Kiou has nine ways to hook you up. We usually go for the ones topped with aged gruyere from Amfilochia. Be aware, however, that the main courses are quite generous and include a heap of fries, so be careful not to go overboard with the appetizers.
Among the mains, a new favorite, and a recent addition to the menu, is the chicken cutlet sandwich, which gets a generous smear of katiki Domokou (a spreadable creamy cheese) and cranberry jam as well as some bacon. From the classics, we love the “Juicy Lucy” burger: a big cheese-stuffed patty, tomato jam and caramelized onions, with homemade ketchup, mayo and mustard. The magic comes from a bite of the bun, saturated with the burger’s delicious sauces and juices. For the burger with blue cheese and bacon, Mantzouranis adds caramelized onions and mushrooms cooked in Moschofilero wine to mellow all those potent flavors.
The section of meats sans bun includes pork neck, chicken cutlet, pork belly and a half-kilo cut of steak, all cooked masterfully on the grill to tender succulence. Bar Bee Kiou invites customization; you can add or take away whatever you wish. If you’re ravenous, you might get that steak with a couple of eggs sunny-side up, tomato sauce and grated cheese. If you like your fries with more salt, you can ask for an extra hit of the coarse stuff.
The drinks list is short but sweet: nine beers, including Guinness, Kilkenny and Schneider Weisse, draft wine and raki, the potent Cretan spirit.
One of the best aspects of Bar Bee Kiou is Mantzouranis’s restless spirit and constant reinvention – another one is that a meal tops out at just €15 to €17 per person. We can’t wait to see what new meaty wonders he cooks up next! (Word on the street is that there’s a pastrami burger in the works.)
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