Bigging up the classics

The prevailing mood was rather different when I visited Athens last October, with mountains of uncollected rubbish in the streets, the riot squad standing by for the daily demo in Syntagma Square, and strikes spreading faster than a spark in a tinderbox forest. The once busy tavernas of Psiri were happy to take our tourist euros but they were eerily quiet. The central market still bustled but with cost-conscious citizens seeking out the keenest of bargains. Life was hard then for the Greeks, and looks even harder now, as they contemplate invoking the wrath of global capitalism by giving a two-fingered salute to unbearable levels of austerity. "Belt-tightening", the coy term that that trips off the tongues of politicians and financial analysts, fails willfully to give the full flavour of the soup kitchen hardship imposed on the Greeks.

But My Big Fat Greek Kitchen is doing its best to keep up the national morale, in absentia, from Edinburgh, at least. "Let the sun shine in Mediterranean-style and beat the gloom and doom merchants" it urges us. The enthusiasm must be infectious. The restaurant was full on a Tuesday night.

I have had crispier pastry on a spanakopita, that triangular spinach and feta-stuffed pastry, but the spinach was green and unruly enough to suggest it had been cooked from fresh, not frozen, and a fistful of dill added another dimension to the leafy, cheesy ensemble. Rice filling in rolled vine leaves had become glutinous, although not unpleasantly so, but the leaves were so yieldingly soft, zingy lemon and foxy mint so clearly present, that you would never mistake them for the firm-centred, fibrous efforts that turn up elsewhere. The taramasalata here has a modest pink blush to it, not the purist's preferred natural grey-beige, but not the Barbie pink achieved by excessive food colouring either, and it had a caressing sort of texture. Skordalia, that clever Greek mezze invention where you mash warm potatoes with garlic, olive oil and lemon juice, could have been smoother, subtler too, if new season's garlic had been used.

They make an Olympian moussaka at My Big Fat Greek Kitchen. Serve that to Angela Merkel and even she might have second thoughts about cutting off the Greeks without a euro. Voluptuously rich, its cinnamon-scented minced lamb, melting aubergine and milky, custardy topping rested on just enough potato to lend support. Courgette, feta and dill rissoles were a humiliating exemplar of what traditional kolokithokeftedes are meant to be like. I tried to make them once, but they fell apart when I attempted to fry them. Tricky blighters.

Save for the truly memorable, freshly nutty, honeyed baklava I once discovered in a suburb of Heraklion, on Crete, I can't get on with sticky Greek (and Middle Eastern) sweets, but velvety strained yogurt, capped with Metaxa brandy and creamily fresh walnuts, slipped over nicely. The galatoboureko also proved to be a pleasant surprise. With its milky semolina innards perfumed with lemon zest, it very definitely tasted homemade.

The popularity of My Big Fat Greek Kitchen may owe something to the fact that although some individual main course dishes seem pricy, the platters for two people – £25 (meat) £22.50 (vegetarian) – represent good value, as does the pre-theatre deal. Oh, and they also do great chips. Enough said.

The menu is annotated with an upbeat commentary: lemon sauce is "wow", mussels doused with ouzo are "spectacular", chicken kebabs are a "show-stopper", moussaka is "fabulous". Breathless enthusiasm, punctuated by a perpetual exclamation mark, seems to infuse the place. This is a high-risk strategy. You walk through the door with elevated expectations, believing that you are going to eat food that's better than the generic Greek offering. Happily, I wasn't disappointed.

My Big Fat Greek Kitchen

6 Brougham Street, Edinburgh 0131 228 1030

Dinner £12.50- £32

Food rating 8/10