Take an idyllic waterside setting, add charcoal-grilled fish, meat on a spit and a crisp salad, and you have the basic components of a typical Greek meal. Olive oil, tomatoes, onion, garlic, cheese and lemon are all essentials of a simple cuisine, though Corfu – owing largely to its Venetian heritage – has a few more elaborate dishes unique to the island, and unusually for Greece local cooking features spicy recipes.
The true estiatório, restaurants where pre-cooked dishes have equal or superior billing to grilled items, are common only in Kérkyra Town; in these places it’s still customary to inspect simmering casseroles on the range and point to your choice. In the resorts, the taverna – with mostly outdoor seating, and thus usually shut from late October to early May – reigns supreme, and ordering by sight is not the rule. But neither should you rely on menus – many of these are wishful thinking, issued free to the establishment by a sponsoring drinks company, listing dishes that are never offered. The only reliable bill of fare will be recited by your waiter; check the menu only to verify prices. These include service charge, but diners normally leave 5 to 10 percent extra for the waiter. An obligatory cover charge includes bread, which varies in quality – darker village bread is excellent
Corfiots, like most Greeks, enjoy their food warm rather than piping hot. Casserole dishes such as moussakás are cooked for lunchtime and either kept warm all day or just reheated at night. If you like your food hot or if you are concerned about the hygiene implications of re-heating, order only grilled dishes in the evening.
Islanders have lunch between 2.30 and 4pm, dinner from 9.30pm onwards, with many establishments taking last orders as late as 11.30pm. Resort tavernas aimed at foreigners begin dinner service at around 7pm; you will have your choice of table then, but the atmosphere is definitely better later.
Al fresco dining along the beach at Ýpsos
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What to Eat
Fast Food
For snacks or even lunch, pop into a bakery for a tyrópita (cheese-filled filo pastry pie); the filo-less version looking like a turnover, called kouroú, is less messy and more cheese-filled; if it’s stuffed with spinach, it’s a spanakópita.
Another cheap takeaway option is gýros, better known to western Europeans as doner kebab. Pressed pork is sliced off a vertically rotating spit and stuffed into píta bread with some garnish, tzatzíki and a handful of chips. Alternatively there is souvláki: charcoal-grilled cubes of pork or lamb served in the same fashion. Souvláki is also served as a main sit-down course in tavernas.
Varied cuisine
If you tire of local fare, you can usually find everything from gourmet cuisine to ethnic fare, from Chinese stir-fry to crêpes. Don’t turn your nose up at Italian food in particular – the Greeks love pizza and pasta, and the large number of Italian visitors demand high standards in summer.
Appetisers
Carefully selected appetisers (orektiká) can constitute a full meal. Shared by the whole table, they are a fun way to eat – you have as little or as much as you want and keep ordering until you have had your fill.
The most common appetisers are tzatzíki, a yoghurt dip flavoured with garlic, cucumber and mint; dolmádes, vine leaves stuffed with rice, onions and herbs – rarely mince – which can be served hot (with egg-lemon sauce) or cold (with yoghurt); taramosaláta, cod-roe paste blended with breadcrumbs, olive oil and lemon juice; skordaliá, garlic-and-potato sauce served with fried vegetable slices or battered fish; melitzanosaláta, a purée of grilled aubergine, onions, olive oil and garlic; mavromátika, black-eyed peas; tyrokafterí, a spicy cheese dip; and hórta, boiled wild greens. Saganáki is hard cheese coated in breadcrumbs and then fried, though confusingly the term can also mean a cheese-based red sauce used over mussels and shrimp.
Greek salad or horiátiki saláta (usually translated as ‘village salad’) consists of tomato, cucumber, onion, green peppers and olives topped with feta cheese. Cruets of olive oil and wine vinegar are found with other condiments on the table.
Grilled seafood
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Fish and Seafood
The seas around Corfu have been overfished and prices for fresh fare are likely to shock many visitors. These are often quoted by weight, so to avoid any unpleasant surprises at the end of your meal, watch the fish being weighed (uncleaned) and confirm the weight to avoid fiddles. If the seafood is frozen or farmed (very likely from June to September), this must by law be stated on the menu – though often only in the Greek-language column, or simply with an asterisk.
Larger fish is usually grilled and smaller fish fried. The most common big species, served with fresh lemon and ladolémono (olive oil with lemon juice), are listed in our menu reader; watch out also for several tasty varieties of bream, such as melanoúri (saddled bream) or sargós (white bream). Barboúni (red mullet) is also a popular fish on Corfu, while fangrí (large bream), and synagrída (dentex) are expensive treats.
Marídes (picarel), gávros (anchovy) and sardélles (sardines) are served crisp-fried, as are kalamarákia (baby squid). More elaborate seafood dishes include okhtapódi krasáto, octopus stewed in red wine and tomato sauce; soupiá (cuttlefish) with spinach-rice; or garídes (prawns) in saganáki sauce.
A Corfiot seafood speciality is piquant bourdéto: white-fleshed fish stewed with tomatoes, hot red pepper, onions, garlic and olive oil. Biánko is, as the name suggests, a ‘white’ (tomato-less) fish stew with lots of garlic, potatoes, white wine, lemon, oil, black pepper and onions.
Chicken kebab
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Meat and Casserole Dishes
Sit-down barbecued dishes include whole chickens or kondosoúvli (rotisserie-grilled pork). If you want a basic pork or veal cutlet, ask for brizóla; lamb chops, however, are païdákia.
The Greeks love lamb. Kléftiko is oven-roasted lamb, though in Corfu the dish might be served in a sauce of wine, vegetables and yoghurt. Another popular lamb dish is arní frikassé, stewed with green vegetables. Even more common is stámna: lamb or beef baked in a clay vessel with cinnamon, cloves, sweet pepper and mixed vegetables.
Greece’s most famous slow-cooked oven dish is probably moussakás – sliced layers of potato, aubergine and minced beef topped with a generous layer of béchamel sauce. It should be firm, but succulent and aromatic with nutmeg; good restaurants make a fresh batch daily. Other common casseroles include kokinistó or stifádo, braised meat – beef or rabbit – with baby onions.
Sofríto is a Corfiot speciality comprising of slices of beef or veal stewed in a sauce of white wine, garlic and wine vinegar with a touch of black pepper and parsley.
Pasta Dishes
Corfiots are very fond of pasta. Pastítsio (macaroni pie) is just that, a mixture of macaroni with mince, spices and bechamel sauce. Giouvétsi is meat (usually lamb) and kritharáki pasta (identical to Italian orzo), baked in a clay casserole. Don’t confuse pastítsio with the local pastitsáda, which is either cockerel or lobster chunks in richly flavoured sauce atop thick, round, brown noodles.
Melitzánes imám
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Vegetables
Vegetarians should usually find hórta (spinach-like wild greens); gígandes (giant butter beans) in sauce; or fasolákia (string/runner beans) on menus. For a more substantial hot meatless dish, gemistá are tomatoes or peppers stuffed with herb-flavoured rice (though meat stock may be used); alternatively, melitzánes imám (aubergine stuffed richly with tomato, onions and oil) is reliably vegetarian, as is briám or tourloú (a ratatouille of aubergines, potatoes and courgettes). Particularly Corfiot is tsigarélli, greens (preferably wild) sautéed with hot chilli powder and other spices.
Desserts
Most tavernas bring a plate of seasonal fresh fruit as a finale to your meal; Corfu’s magnificent wild strawberries (fráoules) are harvested in May and June. However, during summer the only fruits that appear on the restaurant table are Persian melons, watermelons and grapes.
For something more unhealthily sweet, the zaharoplastío (sticky-cake shop, mostly in Kérkyra Town) offer incredibly decadent oriental sweets: baklavás, layers of honey-soaked filo pastry with walnuts; kataïfi, ‘shredded wheat’ filled with chopped almonds and honey; galaktoboúreko, custard pie; or ravaní, honey-soaked sponge cake. If you prefer dairy desserts, try yoghurt topped with local honey (méli); kréma (custard); or ryzógalo, cold rice pudding. Loukoumádes are puffy deep-fried dough balls dipped in syrup, often sold by street vendors.
Ouzo
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What to Drink
Alcoholic Drinks
Corfu produces a reasonable quantity of wine, but much of this is kept back for private use. Usually light red (kokkinéli) or deep purple in colour, it is best drunk cool from the cellar. It ranges in quality from almost undrinkable to good-value tippling; approach with caution, a half-litre to start with.
Among local bottled wines, the most expensive is Theotoki, a somewhat fruity white produced solely from vineyards in the Rópa Valley. Otherwise, choose from the range of mainland Greek wines. Three top-drawer, medium-priced reds are Ktima Papaïoannou, Tsantali Rapsani and almost anything from Nemea. For a premium white, try Gentilini Robola from neighbouring Kefaloniá, Spyropoulos, Tselepos and Skouras from the Peloponnese, and Lazaridi from Macedonia.
Nearly a dozen brands of beer are produced in Greece, as well as imports. Foreign brands made under licence include Amstel, Kaiser and Heineken; local labels are Fix (reckoned the best), Alfa, Mythos, Pils Hellas and Vergina. Corfu has its very own microbrewery near Arílas (www.corfubeer.com); its products, though expensive, are worth trying and include Royal Ionian pilsener and two ales.
Anise-flavoured oúzo is taken as an aperitif with ice and water; a compound in the anise flavouring makes the mix turn harmlessly cloudy. The most popular brands (like Mini and Plomari) come from Lésvos Island. Tsípouro is a north-mainland variant of this grape-mash distillate, usually without anise, and popular on Corfu.
The local speciality liqueur is koum kouat (kumquat), a syrupy concoction produced from miniature citrus fruits grown here far from their native southeast Asia. For a digestif, Metaxa is the most popular domestic brandy, sold (in ascending order of strength and aging) in 3-, 5- and 7-star grades. Mavrodaphne is a fortified red dessert wine similar to Marsala.
Ginger Beer
Kérkyra Town (and Paxí) are the only places in Greece where you can get genuine 19th-century-style ginger beer, a delightful relic of British colonial rule. Locally called tsitsibýra (pronounced ‘tsi-tsi-BEE-ra’), it should be served well chilled and is extremely refreshing in hot weather.
Non-Alcoholic Drinks
Hot coffee (kafés) is typically ellínikós (generic Middle Eastern style, renamed ‘Greek’ from ‘Turkish’ in a fit of patriotism after the various Cyprus crises), freshly brewed in copper pots and served in small cups. It will probably arrive glykós (very sweet) unless you order métrios (medium) or skétos (without sugar); it’s always accompanied by a glass of chilled water. Don’t drink to the bottom as that’s where the grounds settle.
Instant coffee is generically known as nes or néskafe, irrespective of brand; it’s pretty unpalatable, an extra-strength formula for Mediterranean. There has been a recent backlash against it, so in large resorts and Kérkyra Town you can easily find proper brewed coffee (gallikós or fíltro), as well as competently executed cappuccino and espresso. Fredduccino – cold cappuccino – is also increasingly popular. Any milky coffee (though never with ellinikós) is me gála.
Frappés, cold instant coffee whipped up in a blender with sugar and milk is quite a fashionable drink. The milky version looks a little like a small Guinness and tastes like a coffee milkshake, but it’s surprisingly refreshing in hot weather.
Soft drinks come in all the international varieties, while juices are most likely out of cardboard cartons. Bottled (enfialoméno) still mineral water is typically from Crete or the Greek mainland mountains. Souroti and Epsa are the most common domestic sparkling brands. Soda water is usually Tuborg.