Psiri (or Psyri) is the formerly run-down warehouse district immediately north-west of Monastiraki, gentrified since the early 2000s into the city's most enjoyable area for eating, drinking, and wandering at night. The neighbourhood is a tight grid of narrow streets lined with small mezedopoleia, late-night bars, gallery-shops, and the occasional surviving traditional taverna of the kind that has been there for decades.
It is busier and louder by night than by day, but worth walking through in the late afternoon for the street art on the older buildings and the antique-and-junk shops along Iroon Square. Many of the city's better small concert venues — rebetiko, jazz, folk — are tucked between the bars.