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

If you want to be fully satisfied with your holidays on Lemnos, be sure to enjoy local cuisine. Fortunately, there is no lack of catering establishments on the island. Locals call them taverns. Greeks are perfect cooks, especially men, but an evening in a tavern with family and friends is a part of the national tradition. So, if want to visit a tavern in the evening, it will be hard to find a free table here.

If you want to get to know to traditional Greek cuisine which wasn’t changed for American and European tourists, try to find a tavern mostly visited by the locals. These taverns are usually owned by the same family for several generations. Don’t expect quick service and European politeness here. Taverns are not very client oriented, but you will definitely try delicious Greek food here, prepared according to national recipes.

The first dish every tourist should taste is a Greek salad. You should know that locals call it a «village» or horiatiki salad. Only foreigners call it Greek salad. 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 taste. Don’t pass by tzatziki, a sauce of cucumbers, yoghurt and garlic. It is usually served with mutton, different meat or pita, a flatbread. Copyright www.orangesmile.com

There is a wide choice of Greek soups on Lemnos. You should definitely try fasolada, a traditional Greek soup made of beans and different vegetables. It is believed that fasolada was known in Ancient Greece. Vegetarians will definitely like chickpea revithia. The most popular fish soup is kakavia. A creamy avgolemono will be the best choice for those who want to try something exotic. Don’t pass by souvlaki, a popular Greek fast food, a local variant of kebab. It is grilled on a skewer and usually eaten straight off the skewer. This dish appeared before our era and the recipe hasn’t changed a lot. You can try souvlaki in souvladzikos. Souvlaki in a pita with vegetables, fries and sauce is called gyro.

However, there are different varieties of meat dishes on the island. Stewed meat stifado is a delicious dish. Dolma is grape leaves stuffed with meat, rice and vegetables. Moussaka is a layered dish with meat, eggplant and bechamel sauce. Loukaniko sausages and tefteli are also delicious Greek food. Kokoretsi is an unusual dish. It is a lamb delicacy. You should look for fish dishes in psarotaverns. Be sure to taste stewed octopus, dorado and monkfish. You can taste all the seafood of the Aegean sea on Lemnos: from mackerel to cuttlefish and squids. Fish and seafood are boiled, stewed and fried here. A unique Greek delicacy is a taramasalata, fish roe mixed with boiled potatoes. You should know that sometimes the menu shows the price per kilo and the portion can cost more or less. One more important thing is «*», «k» or «kat» indications in front of the name of the dish in a menu. These indications show that the dish was made of frozen imported fish. While ordering a dish, ask a waiter about the price. The price can be specified for a portion, 100 grams of a kilo.

Greeks prefer to eat yoghurt with nuts or fruit or eastern sweets for dessert. You can find lokma, baklava, kozinaki and nougat in every supermarket on Lemnos. There are also heavy desserts like keik me giaourti, a honey cake with yoghurt and galaktoboureko, a traditional Greek pie. But Greeks usually eat them in winter. Coffee and juice are common soft drinks on Lemnos. But tea is used only as a remedy for a cold. Don’t pass by local chilled retsina, muscat wine, anise vodka ouzo, grape rakia, metaxa cognac.