Beastalis, when meat becomes science

With a degree in butchery and countless miles logged in the techniques of meat around the world, Giannis Bastalis puts his signature to a carneria unlike any other in Greece, one that also operates as a butcher shop. Eleni Psyhouli heads down to the Athens Riviera for NouPou and writes about Beastalis.

• 30/12/2025 11:47

This detached house, which once housed the legendary crêperie “Paramythi,” is one of the oldest homes in Glyfada, with more than a hundred years of history. It took a radical renovation and restoration to test its second great chance, now in the hands of Giannis Bastalis. Giannis may be only 38 years old, but he hasn’t wasted a single minute of his life. He studied “butchery,” as he likes to say, on scientific foundations, and then set out to the ends of the earth to apprentice in cuts and grilling alongside those who know best. He trained at the greatest temples of meat worldwide, Ginger Pig in London and Victor Churchill in Sydney, and traveled to Argentina and Turkey. In the meantime, he already had in his pocket the first global award for the flavor of a burger, at the World Butcher Challenge, organized by New Zealand.

With roots in Piraeus, when his time came two years ago, it was almost certain he would set up his grills somewhere in the south. Almost black, with magical lighting and an impressive private room on the first floor, the décor of Beastalis recreates the warm feeling of an aristocratic grill house. A dark backdrop and, everywhere like flames of fire, artistic photographs that recount the works and days of the tender grill master, who wants his place to feel like a fairytale. He marries his name to Beauty and the Beast, discreetly placing on the logo and the embroidered napkins the small, bright-red rose of the tale. Beastalis, however, is in no way a classic—or even neo-modern—carneria.

In the morning it operates as a destination butcher shop, where you can buy exceptional meats: bull from Spain from a small production that secures only 1,500 animals a year, Spanish heifer, veal from Mount Olympus, rubia gallega, the Spanish cow famed for meat reminiscent of wagyu, 21-day aged lamb leg, American flat iron, Italian free-range chicken with its potatoes in a special roasting bag ready for the oven, turkey patties kneaded with sweet pumpkin, and of course, their famous burgers.

Before sitting at your table, it’s worth stopping by the butcher’s corner to admire the unique grill with its built-in cast-iron wood-fired oven, a work of art designed by Giannis, who commissioned its construction from a Brazilian master oven-maker he met in London. Vertical grilling, South American techniques that know how to slow-cook, meats and vegetables hung over smoke before passing over the coals, multiple levels for every kind of grilling—an artwork with Giannis as its celebrant, in his pristine white apron, simultaneously handling and “caressing” the individual needs of each cut.

Behind every dish on the menu lies a complex process; nothing simply goes onto a grate. The whole potato in a small pan with an egg that cooks at the table in wagyu lard from the heat of the hot cast iron has first been boiled, then chilled in the refrigerator, and finally double-fried, scored into thin slices for the ultimate crunch of crispness. The tartare, from select fillet finely chopped by hand, arrives with a bone just out of the oven; the marrow mixed into the meat replaces the egg, finely chopped pickled beet lends its spark, shimeji mushroom adds a smoky aftertaste, and homemade chips complete the magic.

The whole baked sweet potato is a dream, perfumed and exotically flavorful thanks to mint purée and cooled by the creamy freshness of tsalafouti; the whole charred cauliflower carries a smoky aroma and buttery richness. Equally wonderful are the asparagus, grilled on cast iron, scented with yuzu and served with hollandaise and grated cashews.

Their iconic burger is impossible not to try. Completely different from anything you’ve had, with large squares of meltingly sweet onion on the grill, bacon from Spanish Angus, inside a bun that is both fluffy and crisp. An aristocratic burger, with titles and pedigree, bearing no relation to “street” burgers. New Zealand lamb chops, in a French cut, are accompanied only by fresh arugula—a meat that melts in the mouth and the classic French flavor of a cutlet, bearing no resemblance at all to the Greek roughness one expects from a chop. A standout dish is the Black Angus short rib, seasoned with activated charcoal and tasting of Easter in the village, served with a refreshing, sweet-and-sour cucumber relish.

At Beastalis, it’s not just the quality of the cut that makes the difference. It’s the complexity of the grilling technique—perhaps also Giannis’s magical hand—that brings to your plate a meat that seems to have acquired a second life on the grill, a vitality forged by fire. And in the end, that may be precisely the moral of the good grill master: what very few achieve, and what likely explains tables emptying only to fill again immediately, even on weekdays. That divine grilling that makes you fold the hot, sourdough loaf into a paper napkin to take it home with you.