There are some tastes that only become important once you can no longer find them. For brothers Christopher and Cedric von Halem, who moved to Athens after years spent working across Germany, the UK and the US, it was the bread they had grown up with in Bavaria. Together with Florian Messerer and Thomas Gatos, they turned that small piece of homesickness into Varia, a Bavarian bakery on the corner of Milioni and Iraklitou in Kolonaki. Set inside a restored Art Deco building, the bakery is built around the Backstube, an open bakehouse visible from the street, where two Bavarian Meisterbäcker work alongside their Greek colleagues and bread is treated as a craft rather than something happening out of sight. The approach draws on Germany’s long tradition of Backkunst, with recipes and techniques shaped by Johannes Guertner of Gürtner Bäckerei in Bavaria. Sourdoughs ferment for up to 80 hours and organic flour arrives directly from Meyermühle in Landshut, while the counter moves between dense Vollkornbrot and Roggenbrot, Bauernbrot, Brötchen and glossy Bavarian pretzels to cardamom buns, babka and chocolate brioche. The connection to Bavaria runs through the room too, though not quite as expected. Christopher and Cedric developed the interior themselves, bringing in furniture and lighting by their grandfather, Danish designer Verner Panton. Instead of his famously vivid colours, they chose a quieter setting that gives the pieces a different life among bread racks, ovens and flour. The idea of putting baking at the centre has an older, more personal origin. Years ago, the brothers shared an apartment in Munich above the shop of a well-known baker and grew accustomed to waking each morning to the smell of bread being made downstairs. Varia brings something of that memory to Athens. A working bakery where the making is as present as the finished loaf, and where a very Bavarian daily ritual has found a new address in Kolonaki.
Varia brings Bavarian baking to an Art Deco building in Athens
