A CULINARY TOUR IN CRETE

In the restaurants or small taverns of Heraklion, Chania, Rethymnon, Agios Nikolaos and the villages around them, you will eat amazing cheeses, delicious seafood as well as appetizers and main dishes with meat and vegetables.

Ntakos

Ntakos, is one of the famous Cretan dishes, is something like a salad that can be served as a first or foremost dish. Its main ingredients are barley rusk, tomato, feta (or xynomyzithra) and olive oil. So, it’s quite similar to the famous Greek salad.

Stamnagathi
Stamnagathi is a herb that has a slight bitter but tasty flavor. It is a very rare herb as it grows only in Cretan land and very hard to gather. It is usually served boiled, with olive oil and lemon.

Snails or “choclioi”

Choclioi are also among the most popular dishes of the Cretan cuisine. After dipped in flour, they are fried in olive oil and accompanied by rosemary and vinegar.

The pies of Sfakia are delicious coming from the southern Crete, from a mountainous coastal region called Sfakia. At a glance, these treats look like pancakes, but beyond the flour, the dough contains, local cheese and olive oil, and they are eaten with a drizzling of thyme or heather honey.

Apáki and Andikristo
Apaki and Andikristo are two special meat dices that you should try in your visit in Crete, as well as gamopilafo. As the name hints (gamos means ‘wedding’ in Greek) this rice dish is offered at traditional Cretan weddings. Like a risotto, it is prepared in a rich meat broth that you make from a lengthy simmering of goat, lamb or rooster. Then you add a dash of lemon juice and liberal amounts of special butter.

All these traditional plates are combined with rakí or tsikoudia, the famous local drink. It is something like a brandy, similar to the tsipouro made in mainland Greece, to the Spanish orujo, French marc, Georgian chacha, Portuguese bagaceir or rakjia served in Serbia and Croatia.