Cuisine of Ithaka Island for gourmets. Places for dinner - best restaurants

There are a lot of catering establishments on Ithaka. Local cafes are called taverns. Greeks love to spend evenings in taverns, drinking local alcohol and chatting with family and friends. So you should definitely miss the included accommodation meal in order to get acquainted with delicious local cuisine. If you want to try traditional food, choose a place far from touristic spots. Taverns usually serve Greek dishes and prepare food according to the traditions. These places are visited by locals. A tavern is usually owned by the same families for several generations.

You should know that waiters in taverns have nowhere to hurry, but you can taste original Greek horiatiki salad only in a local tavern. If there is a «Greek», but not a «village» salad, you’ve come to a touristic café. Original Horiatiki salad is usually made of olives, tomatoes, cucumbers, green peppers, onion and cheese. The salad is not always seasoned with oil, but you can find a bottle of olive oil on the table and add it to your dish.

Ithaka’s traditional dish is rovani, rice with honey. Pay your attention to tzatziki, salted strained yoghurt or diluted yoghurt mixed with cucumbers, garlic, salt and olive oil. It is usually served with lamb or local round flatbread-pita. There are different soups for all tastes on the island. Fasolada is the most famous and oldest Greek soup. Odysseus could eat this dish because it was known in the first millennium BC. Vegetarians may enjoy revithia, made of chickpea. If you love fish, be sure to try kakavia. The best chicken soup is avgolemono. Copyright www.orangesmile.com

Don’t pass by moussaka, a layered dish made with minced meat, egg-plants and potatoes with bechamel sauce. Giouvetsi is a delicious pasta baked with meat. Pastitsio is a Greek pasta with ground meat and bechamel sauce. Dolma is a delicious dish made of grape leaves, stuffed with meat. Other popular meat dishes are beef stifado, fried tefteli and lukaniko sausages. If you want to try something exotic, try liver kebab, which is called kokoretsi. Souvlaki is the most popular meat dish here. You can find it in souvladzikos. It was initially made of beef or pork, but now you can find souvlaki with chicken, seafood or vegetables. Souvlaki served in a pita with a sauce is called gyro. Souvlaki and gyro are fast food for Greek people.

Psarotaverns are the best places where you can find fish dishes. Don’t pass by fried under savoro sauce and taramasalata, a paste made of fish caviar. Local octopus is very delicious too. The island is rich with seafood delicacies from usual perch to dorado, monkfish and anchovy. Fish is stewed, fried and boiled here, so choose what you like most. Moreover, you can buy or catch fresh fish and ask to cook it in a local tavern at a low price. In short, there are many fish and seafood dishes on the island and everyone will find the best one.

Greeks prefer to eat lokma, baklava and nougat for dessert. But sometimes they eat yoghurt with nuts or fruit. In general, local desserts are more eastern than western. There are also heavy desserts such as Galaktoboureko and Keik me giaourti. Greeks usually eat them in winter. Coffee and juice are common soft drinks on the island, you can find them in every tavern. But tea is used only as a remedy for a cold. You should definitely taste local chilled retsina, anise vodka ouzo, grape rakia, metaxa cognac and local wine.