What to Eat in Greece
Greek food is built for sharing and for sitting a long time. A dozen small plates in the middle of the table, bread to push them about with, a carafe of the house wine, and nobody in any hurry to bring the bill.
The best way to understand Greek food is to watch a table of Greeks order it. Nobody chooses a starter and a main course for themselves. Dips, a salad, fried things, beans, a plate of meat or fish: it all goes in the middle, arrives when it is ready, and everyone helps themselves.
The cooking is simple and depends on a few ingredients used generously: olive oil above all, lemon, oregano, tomatoes, feta, yoghurt and pulses. The dish Greeks themselves call national is not moussaka but fasolada, a plain soup of white beans.
Much of what visitors think of as Greek, from stuffed vine leaves to syrupy filo pastries, is shared with Turkey and the wider eastern Mediterranean, where the same dishes go by similar names. Greece's versions are its own, and arguments about who made what first are best left alone.
How a day of eating goes
Breakfast is light: coffee, and perhaps a sesame bread ring bought in the street, a slice of pie or a bowl of thick yoghurt with honey.
Lunch is late, at two or three. Dinner is later still: Greeks start arriving at tavernas at about nine, and a meal lasts two or three hours.
In a taverna, order for the table. Start with dips and a salad, then add meze a few at a time. House wine comes by the carafe. At the end there is often something on the house, a small sweet or a glass of spirit, which is called the kerasma.
Breakfast and brunch
Breakfast is bought on the way to work and eaten on the move, or it is yoghurt at home.
Koulouri
A thin ring of bread crusted with sesame, sold from street carts and bakeries every morning. The cheapest breakfast in the country.
Yiaourti me meli
Thick strained yoghurt with honey poured over and walnuts or fruit on top. Breakfast, dessert or both.
Bougatsa
Crisp filo round a filling of semolina custard, dusted with sugar and cinnamon, or round cheese. Thessaloniki is its capital.
Tiropita
Filo or puff pastry filled with feta and egg, sold warm from every bakery.
Ellinikos kafes
Finely ground coffee boiled in a small pot and served in a small cup with the grounds in the bottom. Say how sweet you want it when you order.
Street food and snacks
Athens can hold its own with any city in Europe for food eaten in the street, most of it meat in bread.
Souvlaki
Cubes of marinated pork grilled on a skewer, eaten off the stick or wrapped in pita with tomato, onion and tzatziki.
Gyros
Meat shaved from a vertical spit and wrapped in pita with chips, tomato, onion and tzatziki. The most popular street food in the country.
Spanakopita
Spinach, feta and herbs between layers of filo. Bakeries sell it by the piece at any time of day.
Sardeles psites
Fresh sardines, salted and grilled, a summer speciality of July and August.
Loukoumades
Small balls of fried dough drenched in honey and dusted with cinnamon, eaten hot.
Starters and small plates
These are the meze, and a table of them with bread is a meal in itself.
Tzatziki
Strained yoghurt with grated cucumber, garlic and olive oil. It goes with bread, with grilled meat and with almost everything else.
Horiatiki
What the world calls Greek salad: tomato, cucumber, onion and olives under a slab of feta, with oregano and olive oil. There is no lettuce in it.
Dolmadakia
Vine leaves rolled round rice and herbs, cooked in olive oil and lemon and eaten cold.
Keftedes
Small meatballs flavoured with mint and onion, floured and fried in olive oil.
Gigantes plaki
Large white beans baked in tomato sauce with olive oil and herbs. Served warm or at room temperature.
Saganaki
A slice of firm cheese floured and fried until it has a crust, served with lemon.
Taramosalata
Cured fish roe beaten with bread or potato, olive oil and lemon. The good kind is beige, not pink.
Soups and stews
Pulses cooked in olive oil are the backbone of Greek home cooking, especially in winter and during fasts.
Fasolada
White beans with carrot, celery, onion, tomato and a great deal of olive oil. Often called the national dish.
Kotosoupa avgolemono
Chicken broth with rice, thickened and sharpened with a mixture of egg and lemon juice whisked in at the end.
Fakes
Brown lentils simmered with onion, garlic and bay, finished with a spoonful of vinegar.
Stifado
Beef or rabbit braised with whole small onions, tomato, wine and cinnamon.
Revithada
Chickpeas baked overnight in a clay pot with onion, olive oil and lemon, a speciality of the island of Sifnos.
Main dishes
Oven dishes that every taverna keeps ready, and meat and fish from the grill.
Moussaka
Layers of fried aubergine and potato, spiced minced meat and a thick béchamel top, baked and served warm.
Pastitsio
Long tubes of pasta under a cinnamon-scented meat sauce and béchamel, cut in squares.
Gemista
Tomatoes and peppers filled with rice and herbs, sometimes with mince, baked with potatoes. A summer dish eaten lukewarm.
Kleftiko
Lamb cooked for hours in a sealed parcel with garlic, lemon and oregano until it falls apart, with potatoes that have soaked up the juices.
Psari psito
Whole fish grilled and dressed with olive oil and lemon. It is priced by the kilo, so ask the weight before you order.
Paidakia
Thin lamb chops grilled over charcoal with oregano and lemon, ordered by weight and eaten with the fingers.
Desserts and sweets
The classic sweets are filo and syrup. After a taverna meal, though, dessert is usually whatever the owner sends out.
Galaktoboureko
Semolina custard baked between sheets of buttered filo and soaked in lemon syrup.
Portokalopita
A cake made from torn filo, yoghurt and oranges, soaked in orange syrup.
Baklava
Layers of filo and chopped walnuts soaked in syrup. Shared with Turkey and the whole region; the Greek kind usually favours walnuts and honey.
Glyko tou koutaliou
Fruit preserved in heavy syrup and offered by the spoonful with a glass of water, the old gesture of welcome.
Kerasma
A small sweet, fruit or a glass of spirit brought free at the end of a meal. Accept it.
Drinks
Cold coffee by day, and at night a small glass of something strong with the meze.
Frappé
Instant coffee shaken with water to a thick foam and poured over ice. Invented in Thessaloniki in 1957 and drunk slowly, for hours.
Freddo espresso
A double espresso shaken with ice; with cold milk foam on top it is a freddo cappuccino. It has overtaken the frappé in the cities.
Ouzo
A clear anise-flavoured spirit that turns cloudy when water is added. It is sipped slowly with meze, never drunk as a shot.
Tsipouro
A strong, clear spirit distilled from what is left after pressing grapes. In Crete it is called tsikoudia or raki.
Retsina
White wine flavoured with pine resin. An acquired taste, and good with fried food.
Krasi chima
The taverna's own wine, ordered by the half kilo or kilo and brought in a tin or glass jug.
What is changing
The talk in Athens in 2026 is of the gastrotaverna: places that keep the paper tablecloths, sharing plates and noise of a taverna but put a trained chef in the kitchen. A Greek travel magazine's list for the year names Taverna Ermou, Akra and Dopios among them.
Street food keeps evolving too, and coffee has changed completely in a generation: the frappé, itself an invention of 1957, has given ground to iced espresso.