greece

What are the best dishes you can order when eating out in Greece

Food has always been a part of this hospitality and you couldn’t visit a Greek home without being offered something to eat and drink. It would be rude not to offer something to a guest like a Mezes or a Greek dessert and equally discourteous to refuse.

The Greek lifestyle and the seasonal availability of ingredients are reflected in their national cuisine. If you should ever be invited to an authentic Greek table you would have great difficulty overcoming the surprise brought about from the bombardment of sensations and tastes. Most importantly, however, eating and drinking in Greece is a social occasion, check our Greek desserts recipes.

The late-night Mediterranean style of living exists in Greece in full force. Restaurants don’t start filling up until 10 P.M. and dinner with friends is often followed by drinks until 2 or 3 in the morning.
Even on Sunday nights you’ll find tavernas (small restaurants serving Greek food) packed until late.

You can normally find restaurants serving food by 8 or 9 P.M., but it will be clear that you are not a local. Souvlaki stands and other small eateries usually serve food all day but before 8 P.M. you may be hard pressed to find a restaurant that is serving.

Expect to eat Greek food while in Greece. Lots of it. In the larger cities there are ethnic restaurants, but the vast majority of restaurants will serve only Greek food. In general Greeks dislike spicy food and rarely eat fast food.

McDonald’s, Goody’s (the Greek version of McDonald’s), and a sandwich chain called Everest do good business, but there are still more people who eat at a traditional taverna than fast food. In tourist heavy locations you’ll be more likely to find a cafe serving crepes, an Italian restaurant, or even Chinese food.

The main starters
Fish and sea food
Moussaka
Souvlaki
Meat dishes
Vegeterian food
Gyros

The main starters

Besides the Greek salad, are the several seasonal greens, french fries, fried zucchini and aubergines, fried meatballs, saganaki with feta cheese or shrimps, fried sardines and in recent years the Cretan “takos” which is a big rusk covered with smashed tomato feta cheese olive oil and oregano.

Fish and sea food

When you are in Greece, especially on the Greek islands, it is your best chance to taste among a huge variety of fresh fish, octopus, squids ( kalamari) lobsters and shrimps. Most of them are served grilled and in most fish taverns you can choose your own fish or lobster , some of the are live in the taverna’s aquarium and others on vitrines laying on crached ice. Among the most popular fish dishes for the Greeks are: grilled sea bream, red snapper and dentex, red mullets and of cource grilled octopus that goes with ouzo as a perfect starter 

Moussaka

Moussaka or mousakas is one of the most traditional dishes on the menus of Greek restaurants, a food with rich layers of juicy minced meat, cooked in tomato sauce, with potatoes and aubergines and creamy béchamel.
Nevertheless, Mousakas is not one of the daily dishes of the Greek household because it is a real trouble for the housewife.

Souvlaki

This is not as you probably think one of the national foods of Greece, actually souvlaki is the most popular take away for the Greeks, something like the hamburgers, fish and chips or the franfurters. There are numerous souvlaki shops all over Greece. If you order a souvlaki in a taver or a restaurant you wont have the one you get in the souvlaki shops ( skewer wrapped in pita bread with onions and tsatziki ) instead you will have a brochette with large chunks of meat.

Meat dishes

There are quite a few meat dishes you can order in a Greek restaurant, among them most popular are, beef or lamb in red sauce (Kokinisto) or in lemon sauce (Lemonato), grilled lamb chops and pork chops are also popular along with grilled chicken. Another popular one is Giouvetsi ( lamb or beef with Orzo Pasta in red sauce ).

Vegeterian food

Greece is the paradise of those who prefer the vegeterian cuisine, dozens of traditional greek dishes are absolutely vegetarian, to name a few, stuffed tomatoes or green, red or yellow peppers with rice, imam baildi ( actually a turkish dish with aubergines a lot of onions and olive oil), papoutsakia, stuffed aubergines with various vegetables in the oven, garden peas in tomato sauce (Arakas), okra, green beans and broad beans, several pulses like fava, bean soup and chickpeas soup.

Gyros

Many tourists think that gyros is a traditional Greek food, well … maybe you will find it easier abroad instead of in Greece because gyros with minced meat have been banned in the country a few decades ago for reasons of hygiene. On the contrary, round with pork you will find it more in specialized souvlaki restaurants instead of taverns or restaurants.

greek foodFor anyone visiting Greece for the first time, the colours, sights, sounds, smells and most of all the delicious flavours of the Greek foods are a revelation.

The Greek cuisine is significant for its honesty, its healthy indifference to food fads or trends and its ability to promote a feeling of well-being to everyone around the table. Apart from the weather, the food you eat on holiday is a major factor in how much you have enjoyed the experience.

On this page we would like to share some of the wonderful Greek recipes we have come upon. For those of you who spend their holidays in Greece, it will bring back the flavour of the country to you!
For those who have never had visited but would like to experience the true flavour of Greece we hope that these recipes will encourage you try them.

saganakiGreece is a sea-faring country with charming mountain ranges and small fertile plains.The smell of the sea blends with the smell or rigani (Greek oregano, much stronger and more pungent that the Italian variety) and thyme from the mountains. A mountainous range lies across a large part of mainland Greece and much of the terrain is barren.

This is the case on many of the islands as well. Hence there is very little good grazing land which makes it difficult to raise cattle. Consequently, in Greece beef is not traditionally eaten very much and olive oil replaces butter. Sheep and goats are more easily raised and so lamb is the most popular meat and the milk of sheep and goats are turned into a plethora of delicious cheeses.

Poultry is also abundant and pigs are bred in most parts of Greece.Hen’s eggs are common and are particularly used to thicken sauces and soups – a speciality being the egg and lemon sauce (avgolemono). Fruit and vegetables grow in abundance and can be bought cheaply at local markets on the mainland or from the farms and and small vans that go around many of the islands selling their fresh produce.

Stuffed Tomato,Furthermore, herbs and fruit growing wild on the mountains and in the countryside can be freely picked and fish can be pulled from the sea with a simple line and hook. With very little effort you can really eat extremely cheaply and healthily.The people of Greece are warm, generous and hospitable.

Food has always been a part of this hospitality and you couldn’t visit a Greek home without being offered something to eat and drink. It would be rude not to offer something to a guest like a Mezes or a Greek dessert and equally discourteous to refuse.

The Greek lifestyle and the seasonal availability of ingredients are reflected in their national cuisine. If you should ever be invited to an authentic Greek table you would have great difficulty overcoming the surprise brought about from the bombardment of sensations and tastes. Most importantly, however, eating and drinking in Greece is a social occasion, check our Greek desserts recipes.