Greek cuisine

Lagana, a type of bread

• Daktyla
• Eliopsomo, bread with olives
• Paximadi, Cretan bread
• Karydopsomo, bread with walnuts
• Lagana
• Pita
• Stafidopsomo, bread with raisin
• Zea (bread)

Meze or orektikó (appetizer; plural mezedes/orektika) is served in restaurants called mezedopoleía, served to complement drinks, and in similar establishments known as tsipourádika or ouzerí (a type of café that serves drinks such as ouzo or tsipouro). A tavérna (tavern) or estiatório (restaurant) also offers a meze as an orektikó (appetiser). Many restaurants offer their house pikilía (variety) a platter with various mezedes that can be served immediately to customers looking for a quick or light meal. Hosts commonly serve mezedes to their guests at informal or impromptu get-togethers as they are easy to prepare on short notice. Krasomezédhes (literally "wine-meze") are mezedes that go well with wine; ouzomezédhes are mezedes that go with ouzo.

• Avgotaracho, famously made in Messolonghi
• Bakaliáros (Bacalhau fish)
• Dakos, a Cretan salad consisting of a slice of soaked dried bread or barley rusk (paximadi) topped with chopped tomatoes and crumbled feta or mizithra cheese.
• Dolmadakia (dolma): grapevine leaves stuffed with rice and vegetables; meat is also often included.
• Fava: purée of yellow split peas or beans; sometimes made of fava beans (called κουκιά in Greek). In Santorini is made from yellow lentils.
• Garides Saganaki: shrimp in spicy tomato sauce with feta cheese.
• Gavros: European anchovy.
• Greek salad: the so-called Greek salad is known in Greece as village/country salad (choriatiki) and is essentially a tomato salad with cucumber, red onion, feta cheese, and black kalamata olives or green olives, dressed with olive oil. In Cyprus it contains also cracked wheat (bulgur), spring onions instead of red onions, and lemon juice.
• Horta: wild or cultivated greens (usually Dandelion Greens), steamed or blanched and made into salad, simply dressed with lemon juice and olive oil. They can be eaten as a light meal with potatoes (especially during Lent, in lieu of fish or meat).
• Kalamarakia: deep-fried squid sliced in rings. Also known as "calamari"
• Kalamata olives
• Kalitsounia, appetizer from Crete
• Kaparosalata (salad with caper)
• Katsouni, cucumber from Santorini
• Kolokythakia: fried zucchini.
• Kolokythoanthoi or Kolokythokorfades: zucchini flowers stuffed with rice or cheese and herbs.
• Koukiá (Vicia fabas)
• Kroketes: croquettes.
• Lachanosalata: cabbage salad. Very finely shredded cabbage with salt, olive oil, lemon juice/vinegar dressing. Often combined with finely shredded carrot.
• Lakerda, a pickled bonito dish (usually to accompany soups)
• Loutza, similar to Cupriot lountza, found mainly in Cyclades
• Marides tiganites: deep-fried whitebait, usually served with lemon wedges.
• Melitzanes, eggplants. Notable is the white eggplant from Santorini.
• Melitzanosalata: eggplant (aubergine) based dip.
• Pantzarosalata: beetroot salad with olive oil and vinegar.
• Patatosalata: potato salad with olive oil, finely sliced onions, mayonnaise, lemon juice or vinegar.
• Pitaroúdia, chickpeas from Rhodes
• Red peppers of Florina
• Saganaki: fried yellow cheese, usually graviera cheese; the word "saganaki" means a small cooking pan, is used to say "fried" and can be applied to many other foods.
• Skordalia: thick garlic and potato purée, usually accompanies deep fried fish/cod (bakaliaros skordalia, i.e. fried battered cod with garlic dip, a very popular dish).
• Spanakopita: spinach, feta (sometimes in combination with ricotta), onions or scallions, egg and seasoning wrapped in phyllo pastry in a form of a pie.
• Taramosalata: fish roe mixed with boiled potatoes or moistened breadcrumbs, olive oil and lemon juice.
• Tirokafteri, white cheese spread.
• Tonosalata, chunky tuna and lettuce salad
• Tzatziki: strained yogurt with cucumber and garlic purée, used as a dip. Served with warm pita bread.)
• Tyropita: a white cheese (usually feta or mizithra) pie with phyllo pastry. When yellow cheese (usually kasseri) is used, it is called Kasseropita.

Also, several pitas found all over Greece, such as Kolokythopita, Hortopita, Mizithropita (Crete), Melintzanopita, Kimadopita, Kotopita, Kreatopita (meat pie), Galatopita, Marathopita, Malathropita (Chios), Manitaropita, Fanouropita, Sikopita, Tahinopita.

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  Greek salad with feta
• 
  Spanakopita with cubed feta
• 
  Simple meze of feta cheese with olive oil and olives: characteristic Greek flavours
• 
  Kolokythoanthoi are often served with a dollop of Greek yogurt on the side.
• 
  Saganaki cheese
• 
  Botargo (Avgotaraho)
• 
  Tzatziki, a popular meze in Greece
• 
  A plate with Greek fava

Fasolada soup

• Bourou-bourou, a vegetable and pasta soup from the island of Corfu
• Fakés, lentil soup, usually served with vinegar and olive oil.
• Fasolada, a white-bean soup defined in many cookery books as the traditional Greek dish, sometimes even called "the national food of the Greeks".[12] It is made of beans, tomatoes, carrot and a generous amount of celery usually served with a variety of salty side dishes(like olives or anchovies).
• Yiouvarlosoupa, a meatball and rice soup with avgolemono
• Kakavia, soup made from any variety of small local fish with the bones removed before serving
• Kotosoupa Avgolemono, chicken and rice soup with egg lemon sauce added
• Kremmydosoupa, onion soup served with vinegar.
• Magiritsa, the traditional Easter soup made with lamb offal, lamb liver, lamb lung and sometimes mutton meat usually thickened with avgolemono.
• Patsas, a tripe soup.
• Psarosoupa 'fish soup' can be made with a variety of fish (usually kokkinopsaro) and several kinds of vegetables (carrots, parsley, celery, potatoes, onion), several varieties include the kakavia which is drizzled with olive oil.
• Regali, lamb soup from Mani
• Revythosoupa, Chickpea soup.
• Trahana soup, made from a dried grain-dairy substance and chicken fat.

Spanakorizo

Boiled wild greens

Florina peppers

Very popular during fasting periods, such as the Great Lent:

• Anginares alla Políta: artichokes in Constantinopolitan style with artichoke hearts, olive oil, potatoes, carrots, and dill.
• Arakas me anginares: oven-baked fresh peas with artichokes.
• Bamies: okra with tomato sauce (sometimes with potatoes or during non-fasting times with chicken/lamb).
• Briám: an oven-baked ratatouille of summer vegetables based on sliced potatoes and zucchini in olive oil. Usually includes eggplant, tomatoes, onions, and ample aromatic herbs and seasonings.
• Fasolakia: fresh green beans stewed with potatoes, zucchini and tomato sauce.
• Gemista, baked stuffed vegetables. Usually tomatoes, peppers, or other vegetables hollowed out and baked with a rice-and-herb filling or minced meat.
• Gigandes plaki: large lima beans baked with tomato sauce and various herbs.[13] Often made spicy with various peppers.
• Horta (greens), already mentioned in the appetizers section, are quite often consumed as a light main meal, with boiled potatoes and bread.
• Kintéata, dish made from boiled young nettles (nettle soup)
• Lachanorizo, cabbage with rice.
• Prassorizo, leeks with rice.
• Spanakorizo, spinach and rice stew cooked in lemon and olive-oil sauce.
• Tomatokeftedes: tomato fritters with mint, fried in olive oil and typically served with fava (split-pea purée). Mainly a Cycladic island dish.
• Tsigareli from Corfu

• Apáki: Cretan specialty; lean pork marinated in vinegar, then smoked with aromatic herbs and shrubs, and packed in salt.
• Astakomacaronada: spaghetti with lobster.
• Atherina: fried smelts.
• Barbounia: red mullets.
• Bifteki: Ground beef burgers either baked, fried or grilled.
• Britzola
• Bourdeto: from Corfu; fish cooked in tomato sauce with onion, garlic and red spicy pepper.
• Chtapódi sti schara: grilled octopus in vinegar, oil and oregano. Accompanied often with ouzo.
• Garides (shrimps)
• Grivadi, dish or soup
• Giouvetsi: lamb or veal baked in a clay pot with kritharaki/manestra (orzo) and tomatoes.
• Glossa: Sole (typically of the genus Solea)
• Gyros: meat (usually lamb, pork, beef, or a combination thereof) roasted on a vertically turning spit and served with sauce (often tzatziki) and garnishes (tomato, onions) on pita bread, or served as a sandwich wrapped in pita bread together with tomatoes, onions, tzatziki, and french fries; a popular fast food.
• Kalamari: squid, most often fried.
• Kleftiko: literally meaning "in the style of the Klephts", this is lamb slow-baked on the bone, first marinated in garlic and lemon juice, originally cooked in a pit oven. It is said that the klephts, bandits of the countryside who did not have flocks of their own, would steal lambs or goats and cook the meat in a sealed pit to avoid the smoke being seen.
• Kontosouvli
• Keftedakia, fried meatballs.
• Kokkinisto, stew.
• Kokoretsi, lamb or goat intestines wrapped around seasoned offal, including sweetbreads, hearts, lungs, or kidneys, and spit-roasted.
• Loukaniko, sausage types
• Makaronia me kima, spaghetti noodles topped with saltsa kima[14]
• Moussaka (from Arabic مسقعة musaqqa'): an oven-baked layer dish: ground meat and eggplant casserole, topped with a savory custard which is then browned in the oven. There are other variations besides eggplant, such as zucchini or rice, but the eggplant version, melitzánes moussaká is by far the most popular. The papoutsákia ("little shoes") variant is essentially the same dish, with the meat and custard layered inside hollowed, sauteéd eggplants.
• Mydia Saganaki or with Saffron: dish with mussels.
• Oven-baked lamb with potatoes (Αρνί στο φούρνο με πατάτες, Arní sto foúrno me patátes). One of the most common "Sunday" dishes. There are many variations with additional ingredients.
• Oven-baked chicken with potatoes (Κοτόπουλο στο φούρνο με πατάτες ''Kotópoulo sto foúrno me patátes). Another common "Sunday" dish.
• Paidákia: grilled lamb chops with lemon, oregano, salt and pepper.
• Pastitsada: a casserole dish with spicy veal, beef or poultry and macaroni.
• Pastitsio: an oven-baked layer dish: Béchamel sauce on top, then pasta in the middle and ground meat cooked with tomato sauce at the bottom.
• Pork with celery (hirino me selino/hirino selinato).
• Savridia: mackerels oven-baked or fried.
• Sardeles (sardines)
• Sheftalia: a sausage without skin.
• Sofrito, dish from Corfu
• Syglino, pork meat from Mani peninsula
• Soupiés: cuttlefish (often in wine, krasates)
• Soutzoukakia Smyrneika (Smyrna meatballs): long shaped meatballs with cumin, cinnamon and garlic and boiled in tomato sauce with whole olives. Often served with rice or mashed potatoes.
• Souvlaki: (lit: "skewer") grilled small pieces of meat (usually pork but also chicken or lamb) served on the skewer for eating out of hand, or served as a sandwich wrapped in pita bread together with tomatoes, onions, tzatziki and tomato sauce; a popular fast food, also called kalamaki (small reed) mainly in Athens.
• Spetzofai: a stew of country sausage, green mild peppers, onions and wine. Originates from Pelion.
• Stifádo: rabbit or hare stew with pearl onions, vinegar, red wine and cinnamon. Beef can be substituted.
• Tiganiá, fried pork
• Xiphias: swordfish.

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  Octopus plate
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  Swordfish dish (Xiphias)
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  Spetzofai, traditional dish from Pelion
• 
  Pita with Gyros, popular street food
• 
  Moussaka
• 
  Pastitsio, an example of culinary influence from Italy (Venetian cuisine)
• 
  Greek omeletta

Quick pasta foods (in Greek: Zimariká).

• Hilopites pasta (often with chicken): savory chicken is mixed with "Hilopites" or cut up tile-shaped pasta in a spiced tomato sauce.
  • Flomária, a type of hilopites from Lemnos
• Gogges (Goglies/Gioglia), a type of pasta from Peloponnisos
• Koskosela, local strapatsada of the Cyclades
• Matsi (or Koulouría), hand made pasta from Rhodes
• Macaronada/Macaronia: macaroni, various types (often with saltsa kima)
• Manestra (Kritharaki), in Cyclades is called also "Tsounistí"
• Omeletta
• Strapatsada: eggs scrambled in olive oil and fresh tomato purée, seasoned with salt, pepper and oregano. Often includes feta cheese.
• Sfougato, a type of omelette, found in many places in Greece (Lesbos, Crete etc)
• Varénika, a type of ravioli

Melomakarona

Diples are made on an iron mould dipped in batter and cooked in oil.

Melitinia cookies, from Santorini

• Amygdalopita: pie with almonds
• Amygdalotá or pastéli exist in many varieties throughout Greece and Cyprus, and are especially popular in the islands. They consist of powdered blanched almonds, confectioner's sugar and rose water, molded in various shapes and sizes. They are snow-white and are considered wedding and baptismal desserts.
• Copenhagen (dessert)
• Baklava, phyllo pastry layers filled with nuts and drenched in honey.
• Diples, a Christmas and wedding delicacy, made of paper-thin, sheet-like dough which is cut in large squares and dipped in a swirling fashion in a pot of hot olive oil for a few seconds. As the dough fries, it stiffens into a helical tube; it is then removed immediately and sprinkled with honey and crushed walnuts.[15]
• Finikia, cookie topped with chopped nuts.
• Galaktoboureko, custard baked between layers of phyllo, and then soaked with lemon-scented honey syrup. The name derives from the Greek gala (γάλα), meaning milk, and boureki (μπουρέκι), meaning filled, thus meaning "filled with milk".
• Halva
• Karydopita, a cake of crushed walnuts, soaked in syrup.
• Koulourakia, butter or olive-oil cookies.
• Kourabiedes, Christmas cookies made by kneading flour, butter and crushed roasted almonds, then generously dusted with powdered sugar.
• Lazarakia
• Loukoumades, similar to small crusty donuts, loukoumades are essentially fried balls of dough drenched in honey and sprinkled with cinnamon, typically served with sesame seed.
• Loukoumi is a confection made from starch and sugar. Patrina loukoumia are famously produced in the city of Patras. A variation from Serres is called Akanés. Loukoúmia are flavored with various fruit flavors, with rose water considered the most prized.
• Mandola or Mandolato, from Corfu
• Melekouni, from Rhodes
• Melitinia cookies, from Santorini
• Melopita, honey pie
• Melomakarona, "honey macaroons", Christmas cookies soaked with a syrup of diluted honey (méli in Greek) and then sprinkled with crushed walnuts.
• Milopita, apple pie with cinnamon and powdered sugar.
• Moustalevria, a flour and grape must flan.
• Moustokouloura, cookies of flour kneaded with fresh grape juice (must) instead of water.
• Otía, Pontic Greek sweet
• Pasta flora (Πάστα Φλώρα), jam-filled tart with lattice
• Pasteli
• Retseli, sweet from Lesbos
• Rizogalo ("rice-milk") is rice pudding.
• Roxákia, syrupy vanilla-cocoa cookies
• Spoon sweets (γλυκά του κουταλιού) of various fruits, ripe or unripe, or green unripe nuts. Spoon sweets are essentially marmalade except that the fruit are boiled whole or in large chunks covered in the fruit's made syrup.
• Trigona, from Thessaloniki
• Tsoureki, a traditional Christmas and Easter sweet bread often flavored with "mahlep, mastic resin and orange zest
• Vasilopita, Saint Basil's cake or King's cake, traditional only for New Year's Day. Vasilopites are baked with a coin inside, and whoever gets the coin in their slice are considered blessed with good luck for the whole year.
• Yogurt with honey and walnuts.

Feta cheese

Mizithra

Ladotyri

There is a wide variety of cheeses made in various regions across Greece. The vast majority of them remain unknown outside the Greek borders due to the lack of knowledge and the highly localized distinctive features. Many artisanal, hand made cheeses, both common varieties and local specialties, are produced by small family farms throughout Greece and offer distinct flavors atypical of the mass-produced varieties found commercially in Greece and abroad. A good list of some of the varieties of cheese produced and consumed in Greece can be found here. These are some of the more popular throughout Greece:

There is a variety of non-alcoholic beverages that are drunk in Greece even to this day.

Portokalada (orangeade) and Lemonada (lemonade), since 1971, these beverages were served everywhere, in homes, cafes, tavernas and restaurants. They were made with fresh strained orange juice or lemon juice either mixed with carbonated water or flat mineral water and you added sugar to taste. There were also bottled local versions. In 1989 on the island of Rhodes there were two companies that made and bottled their own portokalada and lemonada using local oranges, lemons and water. These beverages are still standards today, as of 2014, the difference being that most of the small local companies sold their businesses to the big companies like Fanta etc., thus, greatly changing the quality.

Visinada (cherryade) is made from dark cherry syrup (which was originally homemade) mixed with cold water.

Frappé coffee

The traditional coffeehouses in Greece are called kafenia, and they offer coffee, refreshments, alcoholic beverages and snacks or meze. In recent years, especially in the large urban centres, kafenia are gradually being replaced by modern "cafeterias". Preferred types of coffee are, among others, Turkish coffee, frappé (a foam-covered iced coffee drink), and iced cappuccino and espresso, named Freddo Cappuccino and Freddo Espresso, respectively.[16] Iced coffee-based drinks, such as freddoccino or freddito, are also popular in the summer.

Greece has the eighth highest per capita coffee consumption worldwide.[17]

• Chamomile: chamomile tea
• Mint tea: right out of the garden
• Faskomilo (sage tea): tea made from dried or fresh sage
• Tsai tou Vounou: tea from steeped mountain sage. To this day the Greeks still like to drink a tea made from steeping dried or fresh mountain sage
• Sideritis

The origins of wine-making in Greece go back 6,500 years[18][19] and evidence suggesting wine production confirm that Greece is home to the oldest known grape wine remnants discovered in the world[20] and the world's earliest evidence of crushed grapes.[18] The spread of Greek civilization and their worship of Dionysus, the god of wine, spread Dionysian cults throughout the Mediterranean areas during the period of 1600 BC to the year 1 AD.[21] Greece's viticultural history goes back to prehistoric times,[lower-roman 1] and wine production was thriving until the 11th century.[22] After World War II, Greek winemakers imported and cultivated foreign grape varieties, especially French ones, in order to support local production.[23] In 1960s, retsina, a dry white wine with lumps of resin, was probably the most well-known Greek wine abroad. In recent years, local varieties are rediscovered and often blended with foreign ones.[24] In early 1980s, a system of appellations, modelled on the respective French one, was implemented to assure consumers the origins of their wine purchases. Today, there are 28 appellations (Appellations of Origin of Superior Quality and Controlled Appellation of Origin) throughout the country, from Macedonia to Crete.[25]

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  Assyrtiko grapes
• 
  A Nemea wine made from 100% Agiorgitiko

Advertisement for Fix beer, late 19th century

Archaeological and archaeochemical finds suggest that the Minoans fermented barley and other substances, and consumed some form of beer.[26] The beer tradition of the Minoans was discontinued by the Mycenaeans; beverages from fermented cereals may have remained only in Crete during their rule.[27] In Archaic and Classical Greece, beer is mentioned as a foreign beverage, while, when Alexander the Great conquered in 332 BC Egypt, a civilization with a long brewing tradition, the Greeks continued to disdain beer seeing it as the drink of their rivals.[28] In Modern Greece, a limited number of brands—owned by breweries from northern Europe in most cases (e.g. Heineken or Amstel)—dominated for many years the local market, while a stringent Bavarian-influenced beer purity law was in force.[29] Gradually, the provisions of this law loosened, and, since the late 1990s, new local brands emerged (in 1997 Mythos made a breakthrough) or re-emerged (e.g. Fix Hellas), reviving competition. In recent years, in parallel with the large breweries, local microbreweries operate throughout Greece.[30]

Greek alcoholic beverages: Tentura (left) and Mastika (right).

Other traditional Greek alcoholic beverages include the anise-flavored ouzo, tsipouro (whose Cretan variation is called tsikoudia), rakomelo and local liquors, such as kumquat from Corfu, mastika (not to be confused with the homonymous anise-flavored Bulgarian drink), kitron, a citrus flavoured liquor from Naxos, souma from Chios, and tentura, a cinnamon flavored liquor from Patras.

A glass of Mavrodafni

Metaxa is a well-known brand of brandy blended with wine and flavorings. Local dessert and fortified wines include muscats (with the Muscat of Samos being the most well-known), mavrodafni, produced from a black grape indigenous to the Achaea region in Northern Peloponnese, and Vin Santo (Visanto) of Santorini, a variation of the Italian Vin Santo.[31]