Opa! Yamas! Greek food and drink beguiled our taste buds

I thought I knew Greek food. After all, we´d been to Greece in 2017 and our at-home recipe repertoire included moussaka, tzatziki, Greek salad, spanakopita, and souvlaki. But we discovered so much more… including what “Opa!” really means.

Our three weeks touring the Peloponnese Peninsula (plus some side trips) with close friends Kathleen and Arthur also cemented our understanding that the circumstances around the food you´re eating – dining companions, serving staff, ambiance, the view, an eager guide, time spent – can make or break the pleasure you take in that meal.

From our guided food walking tour in Athens, through a wine tasting and plenty of other sampling, to our splendid Easter Sunday feast on the enchanting isle of Hydra, Greek food beguiled and fully satisfied our taste buds.

Let me take you through the highlights of our Greek food tastings.

Greek pies

Our wonderful guide, Katerina, introduced us to several types of Greek “pies” – aka filo dough surrounding a plethora of fillings.

Our food sampling began in Athens with an excellent food walking tour led by Katerina. We stopped first at a pie shop, but Greek “pie” does not mean apple or pumpkin. Rather, it´s a filo dough fold-over with a wide variety of sweet or savoury fillings. We sampled three:

• Tiropita: with feta and anthotiro cheese (young sheep-goat cheese, like ricotta).
• Spanikopita: with spinach and feta. Not new to me but I always love it.
• Kimacopita: with beef and pork, carrots, leeks, cinnamon and nutmeg. Really tasty; my favourite.

Greek people eat pies any time during the day, but especially for snacks or breakfast, said Katerina. Koulouri – like big skinny sesame-seed bagels – are also a quick anytime snack.

In the pie-shop window, a baker tossed filo dough like a pizza, then stretched it on a marble slab until it was paper thin. He spread it with butter, then a spinach and feta filling, wrapped it and spread olive oil atop.

Katerina said Greek people usually buy fresh or frozen filo dough for everyday use; for special occasions, like Easter, they make it from scratch.

“Opa!” one of our group members said in celebration of our delicious Greek pies.

Opa, indeed!

Katerina said most people´s knowledge of Greek food comes from watching the movie “My Big Fat Greek Wedding,” during which American Greeks shout “Opa!” during Easter celebrations. But the word had not been used correctly, she said. “Opa” really means “oops” or “oh” – more of a sound than a word. If you want to say “Cheers!” or “Good health!” you say “Yamas!” That was news to me.

Not five minutes later, a lady and I bumped shoulders on the street, and she said “Opa!”

Loukoumades are small doughnuts, with or without holes, drizzled in honey and other toppings.

In a beautiful old bakery that used to be a pharmacy, Katerina said, we sampled loukoumades: small doughnuts drizzled with honey, chocolate, or nuts. Or everything. We licked our sticky fingers after sampling a plateful.

Later in our trip, a taverna server brought us a plate of loukoumades without the holes (Canadians: think Timbits) covered in honey and icing sugar and served with strawberries. What a luscious (free) treat after eating all our vegetables!

Athens Central Market

The fish market did not smell fishy – a sure sign of very fresh fish and seafood.

Katerina led us up and down the aisles of Athens´ vast Central Market that takes up about five city blocks. We eyed artistic mounds of super-fresh fish, fruits and vegetables, spices, cheeses, and meat, including wild boar, rabbit and whole pig heads. But mostly we saw lambs and goats.

“You´ll see a lot of anatomy,” Katerina said. “Most of this will sell out by end of day.”

A friendly butcher displayed his skill with the carving knife.

When I posted these photos on Instagram and Facebook, one viewer commented: “Disgusting.” Perhaps fair comment if you´re vegetarian, but if you eat meat, I heartily disagree. It´s important to know the sources of your food.

Lamb intestines (hanging on the right) are used in an Easter soup called magiritsa. We later encountered other entrails during our Easter Sunday feast.

Whole skinned lambs and goats hung on hooks, heads with glistening eyeballs protected by plastic bags. Entrails draped like skeins of wool, ready for cooks to turn them into Easter soup and meat dishes. As Easter approached, Greek people were getting their orders in.

These sights can provoke mixed feelings: Ew! Yum! For me, it felt real. I felt closer to my food source than in a grocery store displaying cellophane-wrapped meat with no faces or feet or ears attached. Bill worked in a butcher shop through high school, so the market stalls didn´t faze him at all.

Later, on the ferry from Kefalonia, Kathleen and I were leaning on an upper-deck railing and saw a truckload of goats below, bleating in fear when the ship´s horn blew. Poor things. They were likely destined for Easter tables. Here I felt more cognitive dissonance about my food sources than in the market.

Greek coffee

Traditional Greek coffee is made in a briki on hot sand. (See top photo as well.)

“Let´s go have some coffee,” said Katerina.

I had experienced the thick sludge of traditional Greek coffee, aka Turkish style, in 2017, but I hadn´t seen it being made. So, the briki and the hot sand came as surprises to me.

We watched the barista grind the medium-roast beans, place them in copper brikis (small pots with long handles), and add water and sugar (according to our preferences). Then he nestled the brikis in hot sand that was heated by a gas burner below to 250°C. When the coffee foamed and almost boiled, it was ready.

Katerina explained that the coffee beans are ground almost to a powder – the small surface area of each grain ensures they can´t float but rather sink to the bottom of the cup.  

“Don´t stir it,” she warned. “Stop drinking when you encounter the grounds at the bottom of the cup.”

I enjoyed the rich brew much better than in 2017. But then I sipped too far and tasted the grounds again. “Opa!” (Correct usage!)

Mezedes

With Katerina, we tried so many dips, spreads and other mezedes it was hard to track them all. The yellow potato-garlic spread (skordalia) and the black wrinkly olives were my favourites.

Mezedes (a new term for me) are sharing plates, somewhat like tapas in Spain. A meze (the singular) can be a snack or you can order many to make a full meal.

I learned that it´s hard to tell the difference from mezedes and main dishes, since most restaurants served family style – platters that were meant for sharing. Which was perfectly fine with us, since we each got to try more foods that way.

We sampled so many delicious foods – with Katerina and later, on our own – that it´s hard to describe them all. Here are the highlights:

• Olives: black Kalamata, tiny green with a lemony flavour, brown, black wrinkly (they matured on the tree; my favourite)
• Feta cubes drizzled with olive oil and oregano
• Keftedes: beef meatballs
• Tirokafteri: light orange whipped-feta dip with a spicy kick
• Taramosalata: a pink-coloured dip made with cod roe, beets and seasonings
• Roasted eggplant
• Kolokithokeftedes: zucchini fritters
• Skordalia: yellow-coloured dip made from mashed potatoes and one head of roasted garlic per potato
• Grilled sardines
• Battered and fried cod
• Fried rounds of pork salami with leek and orange flavours.
• Calamari: “You have to have calamari in Greece,” said Katerina. “Otherwise, it doesn´t count that you´ve been here.”

Later, we smeared plenty of tzatziki (right) on hearty bread and sampled dolmades (left): grape leaves stuffed with rice, herbs, spices, lemon and sometimes minced meat.

By the end of our 4.5-hour tour with Katerina, we were stuffed to the gills and full of new knowledge about Greek foods.

(We love to learn about different foods and how they reflect the local culture. Read about our food explorations in Portugal, Italy, Spain, Croatia, the Netherlands, Panama, and our own Canada.)

It was time to set off on our own to stumble through menus and learn what pleased our palates. Most restaurant servers happily offered advice.

Moussaka Monica

Monica wielded her two big hand-torches with wide flourishes to brown Bill´s moussaka.

From Athens, we drove four hours north to the Meteora area to explore monasteries built atop tall rock pinnacles. But we needed lunch first. At the Meteoron Panorama restaurant (offering a splendid view of some pinnacles), Monica the server enthusiastically approved Bill´s order of moussaka.

“It´s the best!” she proclaimed several times.

She ceremoniously set his plate on a small side table, then whipped out two hand torches and lit them. With wide flourishes, she waved the torches over and around the moussaka until it was nicely singed. Then she removed the metal ring, letting the warmed bechamel sauce ooze nicely over the eggplant and meat filling, and set it triumphantly before Bill.

“It´s the best!” Monica affirmed.

We tried moussaka several other times during our Greek food holiday, and you know what? Monica was right. Her moussaka was indeed the best. But maybe the view added to Bill´s enjoyment.

Feta and other Greek cheeses

After our trip, we baked feta cheese in filo dough at home.

Feta in filo became Arthur´s favourite meze; he ordered it everywhere and generously shared with us. Usually drizzled with honey, it sometimes came coated in sesame seeds as well. Always delicious.

If you can´t eat cow dairy, then Greece is the place for you. Most cheeses are made from goat and sheep milk.

“Cow´s milk feta? It´s sacrilegious,” Katerina had said. Sheep-milk feta predominates, with some goat, and rarely cow.

During our sunset tour in Meteora, our guide admitted that his mother was a terrible cook, so his fall-back food had always been feta.

“Feta saved my life as a child,” said Tolis. “Feta makes everything taste better.”

A feta cheese dip was drenched in smooth olive oil.

But feta is far from the only Greek cheese: there are graviera, kefalograviera, kasseri, anthotiro, mizithra, kefalotyri, manouri… it´s a long list. I know we tried some – anthotiro for sure – and others that topped various dishes like moussaka and pastitsio.

Saganaki cheese was another meze we often ordered: thick slices of a firmer cheese (such as kefalograviera), lightly breaded, and fried in a saganaki pan (shallow, heavy, with two handles). The result is salty, heavier and rubberier than feta in filo, but nearly as good.

I hadn´t realized that saganaki referred to the pan, not the type of cheese. In North America, saganaki cheese is often flamed at the table – much like Moussaka Monica did – but that never happened for us in Greece.

Meat dishes aplenty

Lamb shank (left), venison, and osso bucco (right) warmed us up on April´s cold nights.

After Meteora, we drove south to Delphi, situated part-way up Mount Parnassus, and stayed in a village even further up the mountain. In early April, the nearby Mount Parnassus Ski Resort was still open and we had light snow one morning. I mention this because the weather made us seek out warm, heavy comfort foods. And those aren´t hard to find in meat-loving Greece.

In cozy tavernas with flames dancing in their stone fireplaces, we ate lamb shank with feta served over orzo, tender venison over ribbon noodles, and osso bucco (veal) with a tasty sauce. I tried to order wild boar, but it was not available that night.

Souvlaki – skewers of chicken or pork – were served showily on a special rack at the Mitato Grill House in the Peloponnese town of Nafplio. 

Gyros (left) are essentially souvlaki wrapped in pita. Pastitsio (right) is similar to lasagna.

Souvlaki – chunks of marinated chicken or pork on a skewer – sometimes came on a bed of rice or fries, and sometimes on a dramatic elevated rack above fries and toasted pita triangles. Some restaurants did better than others at ensuring the meat was tender.

Gyros are essentially souvlaki wrapped snugly in pita with a delicious garlicky sauce, lettuce, tomato and fries. They make a quick, cheap lunch or snack any time.

For the first time, I had pastitsio. It´s often described as Greek lasagna, but with tubular noodles instead of flat lasagna noodles. I found it more like moussaka without the eggplant, since it also has bechamel sauce and lots of cheese on top. However, I liked moussaka better.

In Olympia, our meat platter for four had so much food that we took leftovers back to our hotel (with mini-fridge) for a later lunch.

The ultimate meat feast came in Olympia at Anesis Grill Taverna. The good food, friendly service and home-town warm ambiance led us to eat there two nights in a row.

Our first night, we shared a meat platter for four that included pork strips, lamb chops, chicken, sausage and lamb patties. The next night, we returned for excellent gyros filled with tender chicken. It was a toss-up as to whether those were the best or our later gyro-fest on the island of Poros. Hmmm. Perhaps more research is in order…  

Seafood

Some of the seafood dishes we enjoyed included octopus with fava (top left), shrimp salad, and grilled squid (right).

After Delphi, we drove onto the Peloponnese Peninsula and circled counterclockwise, seeing food and potential food everywhere: greenhouses, strawberry fields (from Patras to Kyllini), and a swaying sea of olive groves across the landscape. During a side trip to the island of Kefalonia, we encountered shaggy goats on the narrow roads and lots of grazing sheep in fields.

Of course, we were never far from the sea, and we enjoyed lots of seafood too: grilled dorado (sea bream) and sea bass, calamari, shrimp in many ways, and octopus with fava (a purée of yellow split peas). My grilled squid was a tad chewy but the flavour was good.

Like saganaki cheese, shrimp saganaki is cooked in the same type of pan. Beside the sea on Kefalonia, I licked my lips over a delicious shrimp saganaki, with tomato sauce, herbs and feta.

Salads and other green stuff

The classic Greek salad is called horiatiki in Greece.

Everyone knows the classic Greek salad, although in Greece, it´s called horiatiki: tomatoes, cucumbers, green peppers, onions, black olives, feta cheese, salt, oregano and extra virgin olive oil. Sometimes the feta was crumbled but mostly it was a block atop the vegetables.

Just about every menu offered horiatiki, but we were pleasantly surprised to see so many other wonderful salads too. Some featured pomegranate seeds, sunflower seeds, arugula or capers; others had just tomatoes and cucumber, or spinach as the base. Olive oil and oregano were common elements. The onions slivers – usually red onions but sometimes sweet white – were quite mild, not pungent.

Salads pleased our eyes as well as our taste buds.

Capers gave an extra salty kick to a tomato and feta salad, while fresh dill enlivened greens with lemony dressing.

There´s no need to let the meat and fries dominate your Greek food experience when there are so many wonderful vegetable dishes.

We (mostly Kathleen and I) sampled stuffed eggplants (papoutsakia) and gemista, which is a tomato and a green pepper stuffed with rice and herbs and topped with melted cheese.  

We also ordered horta a couple of times – a big dish of sauteed dark greens in olive oil and lemon. The wild greens vary depending on locale and time of year, but can include chicory, arugula, chard, spinach, sorrel, collard, mustard, or dandelion. It made us feel virtuous after so many meat-heavy dishes.

I bought a hefty bag of dried oregano, gathered from the Delphi mountainside, and we used it when we cooked dinners in the apartments we rented. There was so much, I split the bag with Kathleen. I took the unlabelled Ziploc, leaving her the original package that identified it as oregano, since she had to go through customs when returning to Canada. “What´s this plastic bag with dried green stuff?” I imagined an overeager customs officer asking…    

Sweets

We never did learn the names of all the tasty desserts we had.

Apart from baklava (layers of filo, with honey and pistachios or walnuts), I hadn´t realized how much Greek people loved their sweets and desserts.

We quickly learned to ask for the restaurant bill after eating our main courses; most of the time, a free dessert and/or a glass of ouzo appeared, free of charge, with the bill. We had cinnamon cake, chocolate rounds, a mousse-like square, halva, orange cake several times, and loukoumades twice.

How can you not love a country with free desserts and booze?!

Bakeries tempted our sweet tooths with trays of baklava (left), with and without chocolate. Halva (right, top shelf), made from semolina, sugar and occasionally almonds, was… meh, as my kids would say. But orange cake (middle right)? That quickly became my favourite. 

Spoon sweets, traditional hospitality gifts, are delicious over yogurt.

In Athens, Katerina introduced us to spoon sweets: preserved whole fruits in a sweet syrup. Not a jam or marmalade. We tried grapes over thick creamy yogurt, and I swooned at the taste. Other choices included sour cherries, kumquats, figs, mandarins, rose petals, and even nuts such as pistachios and walnuts.

Later, an apartment host gave us a jar of orange spoon sweets – also delicious in yogurt or on toast. I discovered that spoon sweets are a traditional Greek hospitality gift.

Sweet-smelling orange blossoms shared the trees along with the fruit.

Markets displayed a rainbow of fruits and vegetables.

When in Nafplio, go to Antica Gelateria di Roma for gelato. Even on a blustery day, it´s worth it.

Strawberries were in season when we visited in April – a much healthier sweet that we sampled whenever we could. We also ate lots of oranges – so sweet and luscious when harvested nearby, rather than being shipped across a continent to citrus-free Canada! Strangely, oranges hung on trees at the same time as new blossoms emitted their gorgeous scents.

The fresh fruit made us feel as virtuous as the horta had.

I tried to remember that virtuousness when we encountered Antica Gelateria di Roma in the town of Nafplio. Oh my! Marcello, the elderly gentleman scooping my crème caramel and coconut gelato, added several wafer cookies and a sweet cherry on top. Okay, gelato is Italian, said to be a holdover from when Venetians controlled Nafplio, but the Greeks seem to love gelato and sorbets as much as the next person.   

Wine and spirits

Mulled wine was perfect on a chilly Delphi evening, especially with this gentleman´s enthusiastic refilling of glasses.

Up Mount Parnassus from Delphi, an older gentleman greeted us enthusiastically in the taverna entrance. He handed each of us a small glass of mulled red wine – just the ticket on that chilly evening. He led us to our table with the jug.

“Yamas!” he cheered, and downed his glass.

“Yamas!” we replied, sipping at the warm, spicy brew. He said something in Greek and indicated we should finish our wine quickly, like shots. So we did. And then he filled our glasses again.

“Yamas!” we all said, clinking glasses and downing the wine. And he filled our glasses yet again.

Finally, someone called him away. We sipped our wine more slowly as we blurrily perused our menus.

Arthur doesn´t even like red wine, but he liked that mulled wine so much that he wanted to buy a bottle. The gentleman didn´t have any bottled since he made it as needed. But he filled a water bottle with the mulled brew for us to take with us.

Some of the wines we sampled included the mulled wine in the water bottle (centre) that Arthur bought.

Retsina (left) disguises itself as ordinary white wine, until you smell or taste it. I took notes at our wine tasting in Nafplio with Mr. Karonis, who also told us about Metaxa (top right).

In Olympia, the waiter looked at me skeptically when I ordered a glass of retsina.

“You know what retsina is?” When I assured him I did, he rolled his eyes and went to fetch this unique wine that looks like an ordinary glass of white yet tastes of pine resin. Retsina has ancient roots, when wine amphorae (big clay vessels) were sealed with pine resin, adding its flavour to the wine. Any wine can be “resinated” but it´s usually white.

I´d had it a long time ago and wanted to try it again. It was… like licking a pine tree. I finished my glass, but I wouldn´t order it again.

Later, in Nafplio, Dimitri Karonis, of Karonis Wine Shop, said retsina is thankfully becoming less popular, even amongst tourists. “It´s bad for our reputation.”

We sampled many reds, whites and even rosés, but found we preferred the whites.

Greece has many dozens of indigenous grapevines, so I had no hope of mastering any wine knowledge in three weeks. However, we tried our best, sampling a variety of whites and reds in restaurants. Sometimes we ordered a bottle, but other times just inexpensive house wines. Mostly, they were quite good.

In Nafplio, we learned more about Greek grape varieties and the wines produced. Mr. Karonis, the fifth generation of his family to own Karonis Wine Shop, since 1882, focused our wine tasting on five wines made from three grapes.

1. Moschofilero: Very light, greenish-yellow dry wine. Good for sipping because it’s aromatic. Also used for a sparkling wine.
2. Assyrtiko: It´s planted all over Greece, but we sampled a crisp white wine from Santorini, where the lava, schist and flint provide the mineral taste. “It expresses the land,” Mr. Karonis said. Elsewhere, I´d had assyrtiko blended with Sauvignon Blanc and quite enjoyed it.
3. Agiorgitiko 1: We sipped a rosé with hints of strawberry and cherry. Even though I´m not a rosé fan, I liked it. 
4. Agiorgitiko 2: A red nouveau wine, like France´s Beaujolais Nouveau, that must be sipped while it´s young – with cheese! – since it won´t age. Dry, with light tannins.
5. Agiorgitiko 3: This third style of agiorgitiko was a mature red, aged in oak barrels with that yummy oaky smokey vanilla taste I love. “The typical Blood of Hercules,” he said.

Yamas! I tried other liqueurs, but ouzo was still my favourite.

Mr. Karonis quizzed us on the popular Greek liquors and liqueurs we´d tried.

Ouzo? Check. This intriguing liqueur is distilled from red grapes, with water, sugar and anise added in the second distillation. It´s clear when you pour it into a small glass but it turns cloudy white when you add the recommended water and ice cubes. I love ouzo´s smooth sweet, but not too sweet, licorice taste, especially with mezedes or after a big meal.

Tsipouro? Check. This digestif made from grapes, like grappa or aguardente, was new to me. It comes with or without anise, so we ordered glasses of each to try. Since I like licorice, I preferred it with anise; without, it was just firewater.

Metaxa? Check, again. Metaxa is the brand name of a brandy-like amber liqueur that´s a mix of sweet muscat wine, wine distillates, and a secret blend of herbs and botanicals. Aged in oak casks, Metaxa comes in 5-star, 7-star and 12-star versions; the more stars, the more complexity. I tried a 5-star Metaxa – the only kind that taverna had had.

Mastiha? No, we hadn´t tried that one, so Mr. K gave us each a sample. It´s made from mastic trees that grow only on the islands of Ios; you scratch the trunk and it bleeds a sap that´s also used for chewing gum. Unlike ouzo, you don´t add water. It had a piney tinge to it, but not nearly as strong as retsina. Always drink it after the meal, he said. I liked mastiha lot. But my heart belonged to ouzo.

Greece has excellent wines and spirits and, as long as you like a crisp lager, it has good beer. The popular Greek lagers are Mythos, Fix, Alpha and Vergina. If you like ales or stout, you´re out of luck.

We spent one of our last evenings on Hydra at Xeri Elia taverna, owned and run by the Douskos family for about 180 years.

Most Greek restaurants come with free feral cats who wait patiently for a piece of fish or chicken to fall like manna from heaven.

Easter feast

For Easter breakfast, we dined on tsoureki with its red egg, perfectly ripe strawberries, honey and orange spoon sweets.

Red eggs, lambs, goats, intestines, a sweet bread called tsoureki and a biscotti-like cookie called koulourakia – we spied all these traditional Easter foods before the celebrations began. Then we joined in an Easter Sunday feast that was one of my most memorable meals ever.

Celebrating Easter in Greece, including all the food, merits its own story, so stay tuned for more!

We ate our way around Greece in April 2025. Find out where we are right now by visiting our ‘Where’s Kathryn?’ page.