Overview
What to expect on this Greece food tour
Two days in Athens for the Varvakios market, souvlaki, loukoumades and a long meze lunch in Psyrri, then a short flight to Chania for bougatsa and raki, a cooking class in an Apokoronas village, a family olive oil mill and cheese from a shepherd in the White Mountains.
Cretan food is built on what grows on the island: olive oil in quantity, wild greens picked on the hillsides, sheep and goat cheese, barley rusks, honey, snails and lamb, with a glass of raki to begin and end the meal. Athens adds the city side of Greek eating, with its central market, street food and meze tavernas. This tour gives two days to the capital and four to western Crete.
In Athens the group walks the meat and fish halls of the Varvakios market, eats a koulouri on the go, souvlaki at Monastiraki and honey-soaked loukoumades, and settles in for a meze lunch in Psyrri. A fifty-minute flight takes you to Chania, with its Venetian harbor and old town bakeries. From there the days move inland to the villages of Apokoronas: a hands-on class in a family kitchen, an olive oil mill, a shepherd’s hut on the slopes of the White Mountains, and a Cretan winery.
Eleni Papadaki, who leads food walks in Chania and whose family presses its own oil in Apokoronas, hosts every departure. The November dates fall in the olive harvest and the season for distilling raki.
More on the destination: Greece: Athens and Crete food tours. Tour categories: Cooking Classes, Seafood Coasts, Farms & Producers.
