Opened in July 2014 near Syntagma Square, Le Greche can be blamed for starting the trend of high-quality gelato in Athens. Only the best ingredients make it through the doors of owner Evi’s laboratory. She makes her gelato from scratch according to classic Italian recipes. Velvety-textured, well-balanced and flavorful, here is top gelato. Among our favorite flavors are pistachio, fiore di latte, figs with mascarpone (made with the finest figs from Kalamata), and fresh lemon and mint sorbet.

Another baklava stop run by a Greek family (via Istanbul) in Nea Smyrni is Maxim. The shop transports you to another time; it’s quite small and modest but filled with an air of nostalgia, which is rare in most pastry shops nowadays. Everything is incredibly fresh, and though Maxim offers a small number of pastry options, it’s tough to choose between the two types of baklava: pistachio or walnut. Both are excellent.

In Koukaki, near the Acropolis Metro Station, you’ll likely find a line at Django. Their 100% natural gelato and sorbets are made daily in-house. There are unique seasonal flavors, such as quince, fig or watermelon sorbets, and you can request half-scoops for optimum taste-testing. Django also sells the fine ingredients in their gelatos, like the chocolate and vanilla beans, as well as traditional treats from Syros, the island where they first opened.

The tradition of the dairy bar – a place where people would go to buy milk and yogurt, or to eat rice pudding and dessert with coffee – has all but died out. In the 1960s, Athens and Piraeus were home to some 1,600 dairy bars; today, only Stani is left. It’s been standing since 1931, and for good reason: thick and creamy yogurt topped with honey and walnuts, loukoumades (doughnut holes doused in honey) or galaktoboureko (custard and semolina in phyllo). An array of traditional desserts await.

A hip and miniscule ice-cream shop in Psyri, Kokkion has some seriously tasty gelato. We love their take on the traditional Greek kaimaki flavor (sheep’s milk and mastic), as well as the yogurt flavor, both prepared with excellently sourced milk. Gluten-free and vegan options abound, such as the popular almond and tonka bean flavor, or their tangerine with ginger sorbet. They also have desserts like almond tiramisu and profiteroles.

This third-generation family pastry shop near Syntagma Square dishes out superb baklava and three versions of amygdalota (almond cookies). The amazing Yiannena and Lesbos styles of baklava are made with chopped almonds, and the later version is drenched in a syrup of honey and orange.

Considered to be one of the oldest-recorded pastries (and desserts, for that matter) in the world, loukoumades are bite-sized, fluffy fried-dough balls soaked in honey and truly addictive. Finish off a meal with this sweet treat at Lukumades, where they are always crispy on the outside and soft on the inside, as they should be.

In Mavili Square near the American Embassy, Epik specializes in flavors inspired from traditional Greek treats and products. Take, for instance, the milk and yogurt from a nunnery near Corinth. Their pistachio flavor is a best-seller, and comes plain or salted (with fleur de sel from Mani). Rose loukoumi (Turkish delight) as well as the Ikaria figs and katiki cheese are also fun to sample, as well as other desserts like Armenoville, a Thessaloniki classic.

A decades-old shop in Nea Smyrni owned by two Greek families from Istanbul, this may be the best baklava in town. Among all the different heavenly varieties of baklava they make, the Turkish-style baklava kuru stands out, made with pistachios from the island of Aegina, many layers of pastry, a combination of high-quality sheep’s and goat’s milk butter and a comparatively drier texture (“kuru” means dry in Turkish) to typically syrupy baklava.

An award-winning bartender, owner Thanos designed cocktail-inspired pastries alongside chef Michalis Nourloglou, fusing well-known desserts like profiterole, cheesecake and rice pudding with tasty cocktails. Lined up like an art collection in a glass fridge are the Mai Tai citrus tart, a rum baba (a cream-filled cake soaked in rum) doused instead with caramel and homemade fassionola syrup, and the Zombie profiterole (choux filled with aged rum cream).

A visit to Varsos is like traveling back in time to one of the city’s grand patisseries of the 1950s. Still in the hands of the Varsos family, its Kifisia location serves all the old-style Greek desserts anyone could wish for. It is best known for three specialties: pure, fresh whipped cream; meringue; and tsoureki, a sweet, eggy, golden-hued bread similar to brioche. We live for the gemisto, a rectangular tsoureki filled with chocolate, walnuts and brown sugar.

Open since 1915, Afoi Asimakopouloi in Exarchia is a third-generation family-owned pastry shop famous for its homemade dairy products, especially its yogurt and butter. The extraordinary quality of that butter is evident in the Greek-style baklava sold here, one with almonds and one with walnuts, both deeply imbued with the fragrance of cinnamon and clove.