Greek food: the dishes that define Mediterranean cooking

Greece produces around 80% of the world’s extra virgin olive oil on a per capita basis. There are more olive trees in Greece — approximately 170 million — than there are people in Germany. Greek olive oil is not a condiment applied at the end, as in northern European cooking. It is the foundation. The cooking medium, the dressing, the preservative, the element that ties everything else together. Understanding this is the most useful single thing someone can know before eating their way through Greece.

The second principle, equally fundamental: Greek cooking is not about technique. It is about ingredient. The Greek cook is not trying to transform food through complex methods but to reveal it with minimum interference. The fish served at harbour tavernas is grilled over charcoal with olive oil, salt and lemon. The August tomato in the Cycladic salad needs no elaborate dressing because it has more flavour than any greenhouse tomato grown in northern Europe. Quality Greek cooking is, in many respects, the triumph of raw material over elaboration.

Meze and the culture of sharing

Meze is the most representative format for how Greeks eat when they have time: a collection of small dishes brought to the table to share, which can precede a main course or become the meal themselves. The dynamic of a good Greek taverna — sitting without urgency, ordering in waves, talking while waiting, continuing to order in step with appetite and conversation — is one of the genuinely distinct pleasures of eating in this country.

The cold meze pillars: taramosalata is a cream of salted cod roe (or carp roe) emulsified with olive oil and bread, pinkish in colour, gently salty with a texture reminiscent of hummus. Melitzanosalata is aubergine charred directly over a flame until the skin blackens, then peeled and mixed with garlic, olive oil and sometimes yogurt: the smokiness from the burned skin is precisely the point. Dolmades — grape leaves stuffed with rice and herbs, sometimes with meat, sometimes purely vegetarian — are served cold with yogurt or warm with egg-lemon sauce.

Hot meze: saganaki is cheese — usually kefalotyri or graviera — dredged in flour and fried in oil until a golden crust forms. Spanakopita, the spinach and feta pastry in phyllo, is everywhere and highly variable in quality: at a neighbourhood bakery at seven in the morning it is a completely different thing from what is sold at airports. Keftedes — spiced meat patties with cumin and mint, fried — are Greek cooking’s most honest meat accompaniment.

Souvlaki and gyros: a necessary distinction

These are the two most popular street foods in Greece and they are frequently confused. Souvlaki are skewers of meat — pork typically, chicken in the more economical version, lamb in quality versions — marinated and grilled over charcoal. They are served on a flatbread with tomato, onion and tzatziki, or straight from the skewer to eat while walking. They are Greek fast food at its most honest: when they are good, they are outstanding.

Gyros is meat on a vertical rotating spit — the same technique as Turkish döner kebab and Arabic shawarma — sliced thin and served in pita or on a plate with chips, tzatziki and onion. Pork gyros is the most traditional; chicken gyros appeared in the 1990s and is a more recent adaptation. The relationship between souvlaki and gyros says something interesting about Greek cooking: souvlaki is slower, more expensive and generally better; gyros is faster, cheaper and more variable in quality.

The geography of the plate

Island cooking is not the same as mainland cooking. On the islands, fish and seafood are central: octopus dried in the sun then grilled over charcoal, fried squid, mussels with rice, sea bream baked with tomato and onion. Meat dishes on the islands tend toward the simpler — goat or lamb slow-roasted in the oven with herbs — partly because islands historically had less land for grazing.

On the mainland, and especially in the north — Thessaloniki, Macedonia, Epirus — the cooking is more robust: the spices of Balkan cuisine (cinnamon, cloves, allspice) appear in meat stews. Northern pita is not the same as island pita: it is thicker, more leavened, closer to bread. Thessaloniki’s cooking in particular is the product of the arrival of a million Greek refugees from Turkey in 1922, who brought recipes from Smyrna, Pontus and Cappadocia.

Wine and what comes with it

Assyrtiko from Santorini is the most internationally recognised Greek wine: a white of high acidity, deeply mineral — the vines grow in volcanic soil with no water table — with citrus and saline notes. Santorini’s vines are trained in a basket shape, twisted along the ground to protect against the wind, and some are over a hundred years old. They produce very little fruit, which is why single-estate Assyrtiko from small producers is not cheap.

Agiorgitiko from the Peloponnese (the Nemea region) is the most representative red: soft, fruity, with rounded tannins, approachable. Xinomavro from Macedonia — more austere, more tannic, more demanding — is what Greeks drink when they want a wine to last through the meal. Where to eat well in Greece: not on the seafront promenade. The best tavernas are on the side streets, without sea views and without menus in four languages.

The complete Far Guides Greece guide includes detailed routes across the mainland and islands, interactive maps and all the practical information you need to plan your independent trip.