Food & wine

There is no single Greek cuisine. Cretan, Epirot, Macedonian, island and Ionian cooking are distinct traditions with different fats, different staples and different histories — and Greek wine has quietly become very good.

Image slotA long table of small dishes and a carafe under a plane tree

The indigenous grapes are the story: Assyrtiko from Santorini's volcanic ash, Agiorgitiko from Nemea, Xinomavro from Naoussa — a red often compared to Nebbiolo — Malagousia, Moschofilero, Vidiano. Most of it never leaves the country in quantity, which is why it surprises people.

On the food side, the regional lines are sharp. Crete cooks with wild greens, barley and sheep's cheese. Epirus makes pies. Thessaloniki is Ottoman and Sephardic. The Ionian is Venetian, with tomato and spice the Aegean never adopted. The Cyclades preserve, because they had to.

The useful things to arrange are the ones you cannot book from outside: a cellar tasting with the winemaker rather than the visitor centre, a morning in a market with a cook, a village kitchen at the hour the pies are rolled, a table held at a place with eight covers and no listing.

Where it is at its best

Assyrtiko in the cellar
Santorini
Basket-trained vines in ash, tasted where it is made rather than in a tasting room.
Thessaloniki markets
Macedonia
Modiano and Kapani in the morning, then small plates until late.
Xinomavro at Naoussa
Macedonia
The red that changes minds about Greek wine, at harvest in September.
Pies before dawn
Zagori
Filo rolled by hand in a village kitchen, the only way to understand Epirot food.