Europe's Best Bar of 2026 Makes Its Own Wine, Beer and Bread
The team behind The Clumsies opens a fermentation-first bar in a former industrial space — and lands at Europe's number one.
A grapeless wine made from pomegranates grown in Tithorea Fthiotidas arrives in a stemmed glass, costs €6.50, and tastes like nothing else served in Athens. That is the entry point at Line — not a cocktail, not a spirit, a fruit that has been fermented on site and served neat. The rest of the menu unfolds from there.
Line is the second-act project from Vasilis Kyritsis and Nikos Bakoulis, the pair behind The Clumsies, with Dimitris Dafopoulos of Three Cents. The room is a former industrial space, whitewashed and high-ceilinged, and the programme is built around fermentation — fruit wines the team calls Why-ins, beer brewed with Alea Brewing Co., sourdough baked daily, cocktails that reinvent classics through those ferments. It landed at number one on Europe's 50 Best Bars in the inaugural 2026 list and number eight on the World's 50 Best in 2025.
A bar that makes its own fruit wines, brews its own beer and bakes its own bread, and was named Europe's best bar in 2026.
Editorial Deep
Start with a Why-in. The pomegranate is the one to order first — a house-made grapeless wine from Wonderful-variety pomegranates grown in Tithorea Fthiotidas, developed with winemaker Thanos Georgilas, served neat at €6.50. It is dry, tannic, unmistakably pomegranate, and does not taste like anything else being poured in a serious bar in Europe right now. There are half a dozen Why-ins across fig, strawberry, peach and more, all at roughly the same price. Drink two before you touch a cocktail.
The bones are the former art gallery: whitewashed walls, high ceilings, an industrial-Mediterranean shell with the fermentation tanks visible as part of the design rather than hidden behind a door. It reads airy rather than clubby, and the acoustics are forgiving enough that a conversation across a four-top holds at full volume without effort.
The room pulls a mixed Athens crowd — industry people who know the Clumsies lineage, out-of-towners, and a local contingent who treat it as a neighbourhood bar despite the ranking. It runs quieter and more conversational earlier in the evening and tighter later. Nobody is hovering over your stool waiting for it, which at a number-one-in-Europe bar is itself the tell — the room is doing the work, not the door.
Cocktails at €11–14 and Why-ins at €6.50 are the prices. Two people drinking properly — a Why-in each, two cocktails each, a plate or two from Kyriakí — settle the bill in a range that would not cover one round at the London or Paris bars sitting next to it on the same rankings. VAT is included in the menu prices per Greek law; anything the venue adds on top is stated at the table. The Why-ins are the value pick and also the thing you cannot get anywhere else. Menu prices are drawn from a January 2024 card still linked on the site, so expect some drift.
This is the best version of what a fermentation-led bar can be right now, and the occasion that brings a reader back is a second visit to drink through the Why-ins properly — one per round, across an evening, with the small plates. Reservations are required, the trip needs to be planned, and a reader looking for a walk-in nightcap after dinner in Kolonaki should go somewhere else. Everyone else should book.
Order this
Drink this.
A pomegranate Why-in to start, then the Wet Manhattan
“Named Europe's best bar in 2026, built on its own fruit wines, beer and bread. Book ahead and go.”
Line is the follow-up from the Clumsies team, built around on-site fermentation and served in a former industrial space. Number one on Europe's 50 Best in the inaugural 2026 list, number eight on the World's 50 Best in 2025, and priced so far below the rest of that ranking it is almost a category error. Book, and order a Why-in before anything else. Skip if you want a walk-in nightcap near your hotel.
The Verdict
