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

There are many taverns, cafes, and restaurants in Leros. If you want to enjoy the local cuisine in its original form, without any changes to please the tourists, you should, first of all, look for those places where a lot of local people eat. The service in such taverns is usually not too fast, and most likely you will see only local dishes in the menu, but you do not have to worry about extra dishes in the check or use of frozen vegetables instead of fresh ones – this does not happen here.

If you want a seafood course, then go to psarotaverna. Not only food from freshly caught fish can be served here but from imported frozen one as well. The latter is always denoted by the abbreviation "kat" in the menu, "k" or asterisks and is cheaper than the local one. If you want to eat something fresh, then consider the time of the year. For example, octopus and calamari are caught in autumn, and therefore in March, they cannot be freshly caught.

They prepare fish and seafood here in a variety of types – fried, stuffed, smoked, salted, marinated, added to a salad. The clams, which were found on the shore, are baked with lemon sauce or eaten directly from the shell. The octopus is added to fried eggs, squid is fried and served under the name of Kalamari. Cuttlefish with rice and spinach - soupia, boiled shrimps with feta cheese – Saganaki, baked psari-sto-fourno fish, fish croquettes psarokeftedes, pasta from fish caviar taramosalata, pilaf with seafood and dolma with fish. In general, if you like fish, then you can try two or three new dishes every day and never eat one and the same during the whole holiday. Copyright www.orangesmile.com

Meat dishes in the local cuisine can also be found in abundance. Meat is usually cooked with herbs, orange slices or lemon slices, butter, vinegar, yogurt or vegetables, and therefore, as a rule, no sauce is served to it. The most popular is souvlaki – a kebab, which, however, may not only be meat but also fish or vegetable, moussaka, pork ribs paesette, stifado – meat stewed with orange and onions, and veal with white wine and garlic sauce – Sofrito. You can taste biftekia cutlets, and keftedes meatballs, and kefedakia, and kleftiko lamb baked with herbs.

The vegetarians can also find a dish on Leros to their taste. Here you can find horiatiki, known to the whole world as "Greek salad", and an angurodomata from cucumbers, tomatoes, and onions, and rok from arugula, and cabbage lahano, and marulia with lettuce leaves. Anamikti dish stands alone – when you order this dish they will bring you a large plate with all kinds of vegetables they had in the tavern. Salads are usually dressed with olive oil or wine vinegar and served in large portions for 2-3 people. Salt and pepper most often you will add to your taste – during preparation, they do not put in the salad. From pasty snacks choose tzatziki.

Be sure to try goat cheese "feta" and spanakopita – a pie with cheese and spinach. In general, simple bread, pita, is often used as bread and as a spoon. Local desserts in the summer are represented by a large number of fruits, baklava, and lokum. However, you can find here a galaktoboureko custard pie, and cold and sweet rice pudding rizogalo, nuts in honey kataifi, and honey cake keik-me-giaourti, and putja-glyka walnut pies. Jams are often cooked not only from fruits but also from vegetables – carrots, pumpkins or eggplants, flowers, and nuts. Local ice cream is also very tasty.

They mostly drink here fruit juices, mineral and plain water. Coffee is very popular. Local coffee is always prepared from robusta grains, served with thick foam in a special cup called "kupake" along with a glass of water. Frappe along with sugar and milk and espresso is also quite popular. Tea is not popular on the island. From alcoholic drinks it is worth trying local wine, especially white retsina and its pink analogue of kokkineli, ouzo, kumquat and mastika liqueurs, metaxa brandy.