Forty-SevenPlaces.
The annual ranking of what actually makes this coastline worth living on. We publish the allocation and the method first, and the entries when an editor has been. A list assembled any other way is advertising with a serif typeface.
The Allocation
47 places across the eight categories. Published before the entries so the shape of the list is public and arguable.
- 12
The Table
Restaurants, cellars, private kitchens
The largest allocation, because it is the category you use most and the one where the gap between reputation and cooking is widest.
- 06
The House
Architects, builders, interiors
Not properties. The people who make them. The architect who answers the phone in year three is worth more than the view.
- 06
In Motion
Marinas, brokers, operators
Berths and the people who manage them. Judged on what happens when something goes wrong in August.
- 05
The Body
Clinics, physicians, water
Every entry here requires verified credentials and a disclosed commercial relationship, or it does not run.
- 05
The Wardrobe
Ateliers, dealers, workrooms
Several of these will be named only with permission. Some workrooms do not want the traffic, and that is their call.
- 05
The Mind
Galleries, schools, institutions
Schools are ranked only against a published methodology, or not at all.
- 05
The Circle
Clubs, tables, causes
The hardest to report and the most valuable to get right. Access is not the same as membership.
- 03
The Move
Advisers who finish the job
Three, because more than three good ones would be a surprise, and naming a fourth to fill a slot is how these lists die.
How It Is Judged
The full charter →- 01
Somebody went
Every entry is based on a first-hand visit, and each one carries the month it happened. No entry is written from a press release, a photograph, or a recommendation we could not check ourselves.
- 02
Nothing is paid for
A place cannot buy an entry, buy a position, or buy its way out of an unflattering line. There is no package, no tier, and no conversation to be had about it. This is the whole reason the list has any value.
- 03
A commercial relationship is disclosed, not disqualifying
If we earn a referral fee from a partner who also earns a place, the entry says so plainly. Pretending we have no commercial relationships would be a lie; hiding which ones we have would be worse.
- 04
It is a list for residents, not visitors
The test is whether something is worth your fourth visit, not your first. That systematically favours places that work in February over places that photograph well in July, and it is the main reason this list will not resemble a travel guide.
- 05
A slot stays empty rather than being filled
If a category cannot honestly produce its full allocation in a given year, we publish fewer and say why. Filling the last two places to reach a round number is how every list of this kind eventually stops meaning anything.
- 06
Some places are asked before they are named
Certain workrooms and tables actively do not want the traffic. Where publication would damage the thing being praised, we ask first, and we accept no for an answer.
Nominations
Tell Us What
We Have Missed
The list is better when it is argued with. If there is a room, a workroom, a doctor or a door that belongs on it, write to us and say why, ideally with the last time you were there yourself.
Nominating something you own or represent is fine, and it will be treated exactly like every other nomination: as a reason to go and look. It buys nothing else.
Send a nomination→Every Thursday
The List
What opened, what closed, what quietly changed hands, and the one thing worth your Saturday. Read by roughly four hundred people who live between Alimos and Sounio, and by the people who advise them.