Athens Life Gallery

Class: Deluxe

Style: Cutting edge

Rooms: 30

Greece’s finest hotels have traditionally been monumentally excessive seaside palaces, heaping almost absurd helpings of luxury atop delightful natural settings, fantasies in bright white and deep blue, with all the old-world hospitality one could possibly ask for.

Clearly there’s nothing wrong with that; everyone needs to be spoiled now and again, and the Greeks will accommodate such a desire in first-class style. But suddenly there’s an alternative to the grand resorts, and we’re not talking about their poor cousins, the corporate chain hotels—the advancing designer-clad armies of the boutique revolution have swept all the way across Europe and have established outposts, finally, in the affluent northern suburbs of Athens.

Life Gallery is a sophisticated design hotel, a small glass-walled modernist building with lush interiors in a muted minimal palette. The guest rooms seem straight out of Milan, open-plan rooms divided by a half-height wall and mixing luxe touches like flat-screen TVs and plush shag rugs with sleek black and white platform beds and a vaguely Clockwork Orange retro-futuristic white-on white color scheme. The suites are less futuristic, more Art Deco, but still fashion-forward. All rooms and suites have balconies with views of the mountains.

The location allows for easy access to the upscale Kifissia district, which is also home to the more maximal and whimsical Karim Rashid-designed Semiramis hotel. Kafissa is likely where you’ll be doing business or at least mounting a shopping expedition—leave the southern suburbs to the seaside resorts.