There’s a fair bit of bait-and-switch going on at Pharaoh wine bar and restaurant in central Athens. For starters, the name.
“In the first week, people were calling us and asking if we did Egyptian food,” says co-owner Fotis Vallatos. In fact, the name has nothing to do with antiquities. It comes instead from Vallatos’ childhood memory of an old fishing shop that sold a type of bait known as a Pharaoh worm and had a large “Pharaoh” sign in the window. Vallatos simply liked the look of the word.