Alaloum

The Restaurant

Alaloum sits on Papanikolaou, a narrow old-town street three minutes from Syntagma Square. The family has run the restaurant for more than two decades and cook strictly from grandmother-recipes. There is no printed menu in the conventional sense — the day's options are written on a chalkboard that changes each afternoon based on what the morning market delivered.

Signatures rotate by season. Autumn and winter: lamb fricassée with avgolemono (egg-lemon sauce); chicken kokkinisto in tomato and cinnamon; a hand-rolled spanakopita that the grandmother still makes every morning. Spring and summer: fresh gigantes (giant butter beans) with dill, tomato, and Kalamata olives; sardines on the grill; a simple Argolid tomato salad with xinomyzithra cheese.

The wine list is a short handwritten card with eight Peloponnesian producers. The barrel retsina is the correct order with the stronger tomato-based dishes; the Moschofilero is the correct order with the fish.

This is not a dining-as-theatre kitchen. It is a family cooking the way a family cooks. The room seats twenty-eight. Service is matter-of-fact and warm. This is where Nafplio's own residents go for Sunday lunch.

Why It Works for Solo Dining

For solo dining in Nafplio, Alaloum is the correct answer. The four-top at the front window is the solo-diner's seat, with a view of the street and a chalkboard within reading distance. Order the chalkboard specials, not the set dishes. Come on a Wednesday or Thursday evening.