Best Food to Eat in Greece: Souvlaki, Moussaka and Mediterranean Flavors

The best food to eat in Greece is simple, generous, and built on extraordinary ingredients. Greek food is 3,000 years of Mediterranean tradition distilled into olive oil, feta, grilled meat, and the view of an impossibly blue sea. It is the original farm-to-table cooking and the birthplace of the Mediterranean diet, and it runs on honesty rather than technique: the freshest tomato, the greenest oil, oregano from the hillside, and a slab of feta good enough to rethink everything you knew about cheese.

The best meal I had in Greece cost fifteen euros: a whole fish caught that morning, grilled at a Cycladic taverna, dressed with nothing but lemon and oil, eaten as the sun dropped into the Aegean. That is the peak of the best food to eat in Greece, and it is gloriously cheap. Greek cooking does not have the precision of France or the pasta obsession of Italy. What it has is ingredients that do not need help, and a table where nobody leaves hungry or without a second helping they did not ask for.

This guide covers the mainland and the islands, 20-plus must-try dishes, the taverna and mezedes culture, prices, and the seasonal rhythms that shape it all. Greece is one of nine countries in our guide to the best food in Europe.

Souvlaki and gyros: Greece’s everyday food

Souvlaki is what Greeks eat more than anything else: fast, cheap, satisfying, available at every corner from morning to past midnight. The word means “little skewer,” but in practice it covers the whole universe of grilled-meat-in-pita that fuels Greek daily life. Athens does it best, covered in depth in our Athens food guide.

Souvlaki Pita Souvlaki

nationwide
€3 to 5
the daily meal

Cubes of pork or chicken grilled over charcoal, stripped off the skewer, and wrapped in a warm, lightly grilled pita with tomato, red onion, tzatziki, and, crucially, French fries inside the wrap. The fries inside are non-negotiable in Greece. You eat it standing, walking, or on a park bench, a complete meal for €3 to 5.

Kostas in Monastiraki (a tiny stall since the 1950s) and O Thanasis are Athens legends. The best souvlaki joints have queues at midnight on a Tuesday.

Gyros Gyros

nationwide
€3 to 5
the rotisserie rival

Pork or chicken stacked on a vertical rotisserie, slowly turning, carved in thin slices as the outer layer crisps, then served in pita with the same accompaniments as souvlaki. The difference: souvlaki is cubed meat on a skewer, gyros is carved rotisserie meat. Most Greeks rate souvlaki slightly higher for being fresh off the grill, but the gyros-versus-souvlaki debate is one of Greece’s favorite arguments.

€3 to 5 for a pita. Skip the tourist-area shops with photo menus and find the counter with a queue of locals.

Mezedes: the Greek art of small plates and shared eating

Mezedes are small shared plates served before or alongside the main, usually with ouzo, wine, or tsipouro. A mezedes dinner is one of Europe’s great eating experiences: order 6 to 10 plates for the table, share everything, let the dishes arrive in no order, and stretch the meal for hours. The waiter never brings the bill until you ask.

• Tzatziki. Thick strained yogurt with grated cucumber, garlic, olive oil, and dill, as a dip or a sauce for grilled meat. €3 to 5.
• Saganaki. A slab of graviera or kefalograviera pan-fried until golden-crusted and melting, with a squeeze of lemon. The starter that vanishes fastest. €5 to 8.
• Dolmades. Vine leaves stuffed with herbed rice (and sometimes mince), simmered in lemon and oil; the meatless version is a great Lenten dish. The same idea wraps up all over the Balkans, where Romania turns it into the cabbage-rolled sarmale you find on every festive table. €5 to 7.
• Taramosalata. A pale, creamy fish-roe dip with bread or potato, lemon, and oil. Seek the subtle, briny version, not the electric-pink one. €4 to 6.
• Fava. A puree of yellow split peas topped with raw onion, capers, and oil; Santorini’s is the benchmark and one of the best vegan dishes in the Mediterranean. €4 to 6.
• Horta and kolokithokeftedes. Boiled wild greens dressed with oil and lemon, and crispy zucchini-feta fritters with mint and dill, a Cretan favorite gone nationwide. €4 to 7.
• Fried calamari. Flour-dusted squid rings fried crisp, tender inside, with lemon, at every seaside taverna. €6 to 9.
• Spanakopita and tiropita. Flaky phyllo pies filled with spinach and feta, or just feta and egg, cut into golden triangles. A bakery and taverna staple eaten any time of day. €3 to 6.

Greek main dishes: moussaka, kleftiko and the oven tradition

Greek mains split into grilled meats and fish, and oven-baked dishes (ta mageirefta). The oven tradition is where Greek home cooking lives: slow-roasted lamb, baked pastas, stuffed vegetables, and casseroles that simmer for hours.

Moussaka Moussakas

nationwide
€8 to 14
the national casserole

Layers of fried eggplant, spiced minced lamb (with cinnamon, allspice, and tomato), and a thick bechamel top, baked until golden and bubbly. It is Greece’s most famous casserole and the dish most travelers try first. A good moussaka is rich but not heavy, the eggplant soft, the bechamel creamy rather than gluey.

€8 to 14. A traditional taverna version is far better than the reheated hotel-buffet kind.

Kleftiko Kleftiko (slow-roasted lamb)

mainland / islands
€12 to 18
falls off the bone

Lamb shoulder or leg seasoned with garlic, lemon, and oregano, wrapped in parchment (traditionally sealed in a clay oven with dough) and slow-roasted 4 to 6 hours until the meat falls off the bone. The name means “stolen,” from the klepht bandits who supposedly cooked lamb in sealed pits to hide the smoke from Ottoman authorities.

€12 to 18, and one of the most tender, flavorful lamb dishes you will eat anywhere.

Paidakia Lamb chops

nationwide
€10 to 16
eat with your hands

Small thin lamb rib chops rubbed with oil, lemon, and oregano, grilled over charcoal until charred outside and pink inside, eaten with your hands one at a time with bread for the juices. Greek lamb is smaller and more intensely flavored than Antipodean lamb because the sheep graze on wild herbs and scrubby hillsides. Spring lamb around Easter is the pinnacle.

€10 to 16 a plate. Order paidakia alongside a mezedes spread and a carafe of house wine.

• Pastitsio. The Greek lasagna: tube pasta, cinnamon-and-nutmeg spiced meat sauce, and bechamel, baked golden. Heartier than the Italian version. €8 to 12.
• Stifado. Beef or rabbit braised with small whole onions, tomato, red wine, cinnamon, and cloves until the onions melt into the sauce. A warming winter stew. €10 to 16.
• Gemista. Tomatoes and peppers stuffed with herbed rice and baked until they collapse; the meatless version is one of Greece’s best vegan dishes. €7 to 10.
• Giouvetsi. Beef or lamb baked with kritharaki (orzo-like pasta) in a cinnamon-spiced tomato sauce until the pasta drinks up the juices, a Sunday-oven classic. €9 to 14.

Greek seafood: from the Aegean to your plate

Greece has more coastline than any European country except Norway, and the fishing culture is ancient. Seafood here is simple: whole fish grilled, octopus sun-dried then charcoal-grilled, calamari fried, shellfish barely cooked. A fish swimming that morning and on your plate by lunch needs only lemon and oil.

Grilled Octopus Htapodi sti schara

islands / coast
€8 to 14
the postcard dish

The most photogenic dish in Greek cuisine. A whole octopus, tenderized by beating against rocks or freezing, grilled over charcoal until the tentacles char and the flesh turns soft and smoky, dressed with olive oil, red wine vinegar, and oregano. The best is at island tavernas where the catch hangs to dry on a line above the harbor.

€8 to 14. Order it with a glass of ouzo and watch the sun go down.

Whole Grilled Fish Psari sti schara

islands / coast
€12 to 20 (per fish)
priced by the kilo

Sea bream (tsipoura), sea bass (lavraki), or red mullet (barbouni) grilled whole over charcoal with lemon and oil. Fish is priced by the kilo: €40 to 65 for wild, €25 to 40 for farmed. Always ask “einai fresko?” (is it fresh?) and “einai apo dho?” (is it from here?).

A small whole fish for one runs €12 to 20. Garides saganaki (shrimp baked with feta and tomato) and fried gavros (anchovies) round out the seafood table.

Cretan cuisine: the healthiest food on earth

Crete has its own food culture, distinct from the rest of Greece. The Cretan diet was the subject of the famous Seven Countries Study, which found Cretans had the lowest rates of heart disease and cancer in the world. The secret: huge amounts of olive oil, wild greens, legumes, fresh vegetables, mostly goat and sheep dairy, little red meat, and local wine.

• Dakos. A barley rusk softened with water, topped with grated fresh tomato, crumbled mizithra or feta, capers, and olive oil. The Cretan bruschetta, simple and intense. €5 to 7.
• Kalitsounia. Small fried or baked pastries filled with sweet mizithra or wild greens, Crete’s answer to empanadas.
• Apaki. Smoked, herb-cured pork loin, Crete’s signature charcuterie.
• Gamopilafo. Wedding pilaf cooked in rich goat or lamb broth and finished with lemon, creamy and comforting. €10 to 14. Chania and Rethymno are the best food towns on Crete.

Island food: each archipelago tastes different

Greek cheese: an ancient tradition beyond feta

Greece produces more cheese per capita than almost any country in Europe, and feta is just the start. Thousands of small goat and sheep herds across mountains and islands make an extraordinary variety, much of which never leaves its home region.

• Feta. The icon: brined sheep’s-milk cheese (with up to 30% goat), crumbly, tangy, and salty, PDO-protected since 2002. A thick slab with oil and oregano is nothing like the pre-crumbled supermarket version. €3 to 5.
• Graviera. Greece’s favorite hard cheese, nutty and sweet, aged 3 to 12 months; the Cretan version is the most prized.
• Manouri and mizithra. A soft, slightly sweet whey cheese excellent with honey, and a fresh or aged sheep cheese for eating or grating.
• Kopanisti and arseniko. Mykonos’s sharp, peppery, fermented spread, and Naxos’s hard, complex aged cheese, one of Greece’s best-kept secrets.

Greek sweets and desserts: honey, phyllo and syrup

Greek sweets are drenched, soaked in syrup, drowning in honey, layered with nuts, and rich enough to need a strong coffee alongside. The tradition is shared with Turkey and the wider Levant, and the argument over who invented what is older than most countries.

• Loukoumades. Small fried dough puffs drenched in honey and dusted with cinnamon and crushed walnuts, served hot, crisp outside and airy inside. €4 to 7.
• Baklava. Phyllo layered with walnuts or pistachios, butter, cinnamon, and a honey soak; the Greek version leans more on honey than the Turkish. €2 to 4 a piece.
• Galaktoboureko. Semolina custard wrapped in phyllo and soaked in lemon syrup, rich and wobbly. €3 to 5.
• Greek yogurt with honey and walnuts. Thick strained yogurt drizzled with thyme honey, the perfect end to a meal or a Greek breakfast. €3 to 5.

Wine, ouzo and the Greek way of drinking

• Ouzo. The anise spirit that turns milky with water and ice, sipped slowly through a long mezedes meal, never shot. Lesvos (Plomari) makes the best.
• Tsipouro and raki. The stronger pomace spirits of the mainland and Crete, often served free at the end of a meal.
• Greek wine. Assyrtiko (Santorini’s mineral white) is world-class; Agiorgitiko and Xinomavro are the great reds. Retsina, the pine-resin white, is an acquired but authentic taste.
• Greek coffee and frappe. Thick, unfiltered coffee brewed in a briki and sipped slowly, and the iced, frothy instant frappe that fuels Greek summers.

Best food cities and islands in Greece

Best food to eat in Greece: the dish guide with prices

How to eat well in Greece on any budget

Budget: under €20 a day ($22)

Two souvlaki pitas (€6 to 10), a cheese pie (tiropita) or koulouri bread ring for breakfast (€1.50), horta or fava with bread, and a frappe. Greece is one of the cheapest food countries in Western Europe, and the street food is genuinely excellent.

Mid-range: €30 to 50 a day ($33 to 55)

A full mezedes-and-ouzo dinner for the table (€20 to 30 per person across shared plates), a taverna lunch with grilled fish or moussaka, and Greek yogurt with honey. The sweet spot, where the long shared meals happen.

High-end: €60+ a day ($66+)

Wild whole fish priced by the kilo at a seaside taverna (€40 to 65/kg), modern Greek tasting menus in Athens, and Santorini’s cliffside restaurants. Even the splurges stay reasonable next to the rest of Western Europe.

Frequently asked questions about Greek food