10 Greek Food Favorites You Will Love

We get it. During our initial Greek meal, we were so excited by the local food that we wanted to order an entire restaurant menu until sanity and our belts reigned us in. Luckily, we had over a month to eat lots of traditional Greek food and discover the best food in Greece.

By the end of our trip, we compiled a list of our favorite Greek foods. As you start your own culinary journey in Greece, we recommend you start with the following traditional Greek dishes:

Since souvlaki is readily available at both sidewalk stalls and casual restaurants all over Greece, it’s easy to find the ultimate ‘meat-on-a-stick’ snack food in Athens and on the country’s many islands including Mykonos, Santorini and Rhodes. Some Greek menus list this crowd-pleaser as kalamaki or gyro, but it’s all souvlaki and it’s all good.

Read our Athens Souvlaki Guide.

To prepare souvlaki, grill masters cook meats like pork, chicken and occasionally lamb on large pits before transferring charred chunks to skewers. Motivated vegetarians can find souvlaki versions with eggplant, peppers and mushrooms.

Pro Tip
Eat Greek souvlaki with pita bread, fried potatoes and tzatziki sauce. This combination is swoon-worthy.

Regardless of the cheese type or preparation, saganaki is a must-try Greek food in Greece. We first ate saganaki in Meteora and it immediately became a go-to starter throughout the country. Though the preparation of saganaki varied by location during our trip, all versions tasted decadently divine.

Pro Tip
Squeeze fresh lemon juice on top of your saganaki. The juice provides acidity while enhancing the dish’s flavor.

Typically baked with 33 layers of phyllo dough, nuts and cinnamon as well as honey or syrup flavored with rose water, Greek baklava is difficult to resist. Between its enticing aroma and rich taste, baklava is easily our favorite dessert in Greece.

Pro Tip
Wash your hands after you eat baklava as the sweet dessert leaves a sticky residue in its wake.

In many countries, salads are considered ‘diet’ food for those looking to lose weight. This is not the case in Greece where it’s a pleasure to eat a colorful salad filled with ripe tomatoes, kalamata olives and slabs of briny feta. The best horiatiki salads add paximadia or twice-baked barley rusks similar to crunchy croutons but larger.

Pro Tip
Shop at a Greek market and buy all necessary ingredients to make horiatiki if you’re staying in an apartment. Otherwise, you can order excellent salads at most restaurants in Greece.

After enjoying moussaka at casual eateries known as tavernas, we learned how to make the decadent dish from scratch during a cooking class with Onion Athens. Not only was the class fun, but it also reinforced our appreciation for Greece’s unofficial alternative to lasagna.

Pro Tip
Switch it up and try pastitsio, a Greek dish that’s similar to moussaka but with pasta instead of eggplant.

If you think that donuts are a modern invention, think again.

Greece’s loukoumades dated back to the first Olympics in 776 BC. Though the original loukoumades were enjoyed by ancient athletes, everybody can enjoy them today regardless of athletic ability or lack thereof.

Traditional Greek loukoumades are round balls of golden fried dough flavored with cinnamon and honey syrup. Some people sprinkle powdered sugar on their loukoumades for an extra burst of sweetness, but this is an optional add-on.

Discover more than 100 of the best desserts around the world some of which are also the best donuts in the world.

We first ate loukoumades during an Athens food tour that introduced us to many of the city’s best food vendors. We couldn’t get the memory of these Greek donuts, made with orange blossom honey, out of our head after the tour. We returned to popular local bakery Krivos to eat them again and they were as good as we remembered.

Pro Tip
Add a cup of coffee to your loukoumades to create a quick yet tasty Greek breakfast.

Greek restaurants serve octopus on a ‘sea to table’ basis. This is especially the case on Greek islands like Santorini where fishermen capture octopus in the morning and grill the tentacled mollusks later that day.

Pro Tip
Pair octopus with white wine or ouzo. Be sure to exclaim “Yamas” when you clink glasses before your first sip of the iconic Greek drink.

Taramasalata starts with cured fish roe and gets added flavor from ingredients like olive oil and lemon juice. We’ve eaten the creamy, fishy spread in countries like France and Romania, but we ate our favorite taramasalata in Greece. The creamy, salty mezze dish is a Greek classic.

Pro Tip
You can dip fresh vegetables into taramasalata or eat the creamy spread with bread.

Known as stuffed grape leaves in English-speaking countries, dolmades are bite-sized morsels filled with an herbaceous rice mixture. Plan to dip vegetarian-friendly dolmades in tzatziki yogurt sauce for the full dining experience.

Pro Tip
Don’t be confused if you see dolmadakia on a Greek menu. Dolmadakia are just smaller-sized dolmades.

Locals typically eat cheese pies for breakfast or as a pre-lunch snack. During our Greek sojourn, we enjoyed them at various times since Greek vendors sell cheese pies all day long.

Pro Tip
Greek vendors sell cheese pies called tiropita and kourous. They taste good regardless of the name.