Cocina Informal · Ouzeri and meze

Tsinari

One of the oldest surviving ouzeris in Thessaloniki, set in a pastel late-Ottoman house at the old Tsinari fountain in Ano Poli — the name comes from the plane tree (çınar) that once shaded the corner. It has traded on this corner since 1885, opening as an Ottoman-era café before becoming an ouzeri, and it survived the 1917 fire that levelled most of the lower city, and still serves classic meze with ouzo and tsipouro at gingham-clothed tables that spill onto the cobbles. The draw is as much the atmosphere — vintage photos, a checkerboard floor, the upper-town quiet — as the food.