I went to Greece a few weeks ago and it was AMAZING. I wanted to do a post about our trip but doing just a big general post seemed like too much to try to cover at once. (Even this post will be a little long but I promise it’s worth it so stick with me!) So, I decided to do one just about food. Because everyone loves food and food is a very important part of travel. And life. And everything. I love food.

Anyway… Greece is known for having delicious food, the typical Mediterranean fare you would imagine, like olives, seafood, lamb, etc. but there was so much we weren’t expecting. Food was definitely high on our list of priorities for this trip, not just eating food, (duh we need that to live) but eating really good food. It can be hard though to find places that have authentic food and decent prices, so here are some tips for how we find better food: (Also, wow how many times can I say food in one paragraph…)

Steer Clear of the Tourist Traps

Look for restaurants away from the main tourist center. In Rome for example, the restaurants around the Campo de' Fiori and the Colosseum are going to most likely be overpriced, and catering to tourists’ ideas of what Italian food is. Any place with caesar salad or spaghetti with meatballs on the menu are not going to be authentic (hint: neither of those dishes are actually Italian).

Markets are Authentic and Exciting

Visit a market and/or grocery store. I love doing this when I travel because markets not only teach you so much about a culture and their personalities (for example - a colorful, social, open-air market in Ecuador vs a very organized and clean one-stop-shop grocery in Austria) but also what to expect from the cuisine in your new destination. They will have local favorites and it’s an easy way to try new foods without the commitment of ordering them at a restaurant.

Look for the Locals

If there are mostly people in a restaurant speaking the native language and the menu is in that language as well, probably a safe bet that it’s good. If the locals like it, you know it’s real.

Busy is Best

Look for lots of people. If a place is empty at a time that people are normally out to eat, there’s probably a reason. Steer clear of places where you’ll be the only one eating.

Always Ask!

Just straight up ask people! This is the best option because some places are hard to find and without a local telling you to go, you may never know about it. Also, again, if locals like it, it’s probably good.

Throughout our trip, we ate the Greek standards like fresh olives and souvlaki and gyros, but we also ate things we weren’t expecting. For one thing, Greeks go hard with their cheese. Lactose intolerants beware, cheese is in everything. I love cheese, so I was happy about it, my complexion however was not happy about it. There was lots of feta with honey wrapped in phyllo dough or fried with sesame seeds and honey, and local hard cheeses from each place we visited. Also, the yogurt was so yummy each morning with honey and syrupy fruit preserves on top.

Breakfast in Santorini with plenty of yogurt, cheese, and butter...

Enjoying one of many iced cappuccinos at Samaria Gorge, Crete.

We also learned that coffee is very important to Greeks and is acceptable to drink at all times of day which was very exciting. At 11pm Greeks sat outside restaurants and bars at their tiny tables and chatted over iced cappuccinos. While taking a walking tour of Athens with a local Athenian named Nicole, she took us to a trendy coffee shop outside the heavily touristed neighborhood of Monastiraki and got three iced cappuccinos for us. When I asked her how much it cost, she told me “5.40” and I said, “Ok, for each?”. She laughed, then the barista checking us out laughed and Nicole said, “Uh no, for all of them together.” This I also enjoyed. 5.40 is a realistic price for one coffee in the US and apparently in Athens, the idea of paying 5.40 for one delicious and carefully brewed cappuccino at a trendy coffee shop, is laughable. My coffee habit and this information compel me to move to Athens immediately. Exciting coffee prices aside, we also had some incredible seafood on the islands we visited. Fresh octopus with lemon and olive oil and Kalamari with oil and vinegar hit the spot after a warm day at the beach or exploring archaeological sites. Especially when you’re sitting right next to the sea it was caught from.

Quiet little seafood only restaurant tucked away in Chania, Crete.

By far the best meal we had in Greece - both food and experience - was our last night in Chania on Crete. Austin and I had gone to Samaria Gorge that morning and when we got back to town later I was ready to explore and do some souvenir shopping before we left for Iraklio the next morning. Austin was not up for it and wanted to rest a bit before dinner so I ventured out by myself to the Chania central market. I had made a few decent purchases and I was about to leave when I saw one more store at the end of the row and decided to just give it a look before I went back to our airbnb. I’m so glad I decided to stop in because not only did this shop have unique, interesting, and artistic gifts all made by Greek artists, but the owners ended up hooking us up with the best meal of our trip! I studied the gifts for a solid 30 minutes trying to mentally check off what I needed to get for whom and finally checked out. The woman working at the checkout, named Annetta (who knows if I spelled that right) told me the gifts I purchased each had a story or explanation behind them. As she started to explain how one of the patterns was from a motif used at the palace of Knossos, built by the ancient Minoans she said, “Forgive me, I could go very in depth with this because I studied Archaeology” to which I replied, “Oh! So did I!” She then told me, “Well I studied Archaeology but in Graduate School I switched and studied cultural Anthropology instead” to which I replied again, “Oh my gosh, so did I!!”

Naturally we started discussing all sorts of nerdy things like classical archaeology and each of our respective graduate school research topics and then the owner of the shop arrived, Nina, and joined in the conversation as well. We talked for probably 20 – 30 minutes and they gave me a cool, goat leather magnet with a printed pattern from Knossos on it for free and I was about to leave when I said, “Oh, I wanted to ask, tonight is my last night in Chania and I wondered if you all had any dinner recommendations for traditional Cretan food.” They looked at each other and in unison said “To Mikio”. They explained that it was a small, family run restaurant with traditional Cretan specialties and they only had 5 tables. They then proceeded to offer to call the restaurant owner, an acquaintance, and ask them to reserve one of their 5 tables for me. They called, asked what time I wanted to go and informed me the reservation had been set for 9. They wrote down directions to the restaurant, we hugged goodbye and Annetta left to go teach her gypsy friend how to read (what a gem of a human, really).

Hang with me folks, I know I haven’t even made it to the restaurant yet! So we showed up to To Mikio at 9pm and saw a teeny table in a teeny ally with a teeny reserved sign on it. The waitress, who is also the owner, asked if I was Samantha and then seated us. Her brother was the cook and she served and together they ran this small but amazing restaurant. She recommended an organic local white wine, we ate 3 types of local olives, fried eggplant, pork meatballs with fresh oregano and tomato sauce, oven cooked lamb with a yogurt sauce, an assortment of local cheeses and some fluffy, gooey Loukoumi (a Greek version of Turkish Delight). We finished with some raki/ tsikoudia (a strong grape-based liquor). By this time the restaurant had closed and both the sister and brother came out to sit with us and an older Canadian couple sitting at the next table. We sat and chatted about everything from Greek politics and history to wine to the housing market in Vancouver. We didn’t leave the restaurant until 1 am… The food was incredible, flavorful, and fresh and the company was amazing as well.

Pork meatballs with local herbs and tomato sauce. Not the prettiest but definitely the tastiest.

Sharing a meal with people in the place you are visiting is easily the best way to get to know what that place is all about. You can learn a place’s history and cultural values just by seeing what they eat, how they prepare it, and how long a meal lasts. All of this to say, our experience in Greece was more than we ever could have hoped for. The people were welcoming, thoughtful, tough, and interesting, the food they made was delightful and I hope to return as soon as possible (especially since baristas here seem to think that you can’t have a cold cappuccino).

Thanks for reading this and I hope my food excitement didn’t bore you too much.

Sami

The only two beers made by the only brewery on Santorini.