Traditional Café-Ouzeri “STOU MITSOU”

The little restaurant "STOU MITSOU", an Ouzeri that looks like a traditional café, is "hidden" in Kapani, the famous Bazaar of Thessaloniki and a place with a long history, among green grocers, an old bakery and shops of various kinds. You will go there walking from anywhere in the center entering the Kapani Bazaar from any of its galleries, from Venizelou street, from Egnatia street, from Aristotelous or from Ermou street. You will recognize it from the dried peppers, the pumpkins, the garlic and the herbs hanging inside, as well as from its colored decoration objects and the big wicker baskets. Outdoors, on the old paved pedestrian street, there are wooden benches and chairs, decorative pots and from the loudspeakers you can hear selected Greek music. The "STO MITSOU"–Ouzeri opened on February of the year 2014, has been made with much love and personal care and recently celebrated its 4 years of operation. The indoor space of the shop is not more than three square meters. On a very small bench, in a traditional kitchenette, the owner Mitsos starts cooking and here the whole story begins...reaching to a series of meals with an exquisite presentation that you expect to see only in gourmet restaurants. We really wonder how all these things can be prepared in such a small kitchen full of pots with fresh and wonderfully smelling herbs that Mitsos adds to the salads and the meze dishes. In the kitchen are used materials which are all tested and pure traditional products of Greek producers. Monastery fish-liver, liver with sweet potato (a grandmother’s recipe from the Peloponnese), meatballs with mustard leaves, couscous with octopus, shrimps and mussels with Cretan noodles, salad with sour cream and fresh capers, octopus and cuttlefish kebab, fried bones of hornbeam - served on a wooden plate, together with beetroot, greens, cherry tomatoes and chopped fresh onion… Every bite is a small explosion of taste!

You can accompany the delicious meze with: raki and grappa, with Cretan tsikoudia from Kissamos, white wine from Ioannina, tsipouro from Drama, one bottled wine, "Amaranths Gaia", red, Merlot and Cabernet, organic produced in Pangaio and beers of Thessaloniki brands…The Ouzeri "STOU MITSOU" also often hosts live musical events with beautiful rebetika and other popular greek songs that start about 15:30 and last till late, as far as  live performances  of “Karagiozis” theater.

And finally comes the bill: for food along with a drink, about €12 to €15 per person. So it is self-evident that the Traditional Cafe "STOU MITSOU" was awarded the 1st prize as the best restaurant in Greece for 2018 in the competition for the "TOP 10 HIDDEN GEMS-GREECE 2018" and has managed to become one from the favorite places of locals and non-residents, in Thessaloniki!