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

The love of the inhabitants of Sifnos for pottery is reflected even in the specifics of the local cuisine. Clay pots of different types and forms are widely used here for preparing a whole range of dishes. It became a kind of a gastronomic landmark of the island. For example, revifada, which is prepared mainly from slightly boiled and smoked chickpeas with onions, olive oil, and bay leaf, languishes overnight in a special dish called skepastaria. Mastelo, the meat of a goat or lamb, is baked with wine on grape rods in a special clay pot.

A salad of dry capers can also be called an interesting local dish. Local chefs like to cook cutlets. There are a lot of varieties of this dish, and the ingredients always are very different, ranging from the usual meat and fish and ending with peeled peas and fish caviar. On Synfos, they produce a considerable amount of cheeses. It is necessary to try mizithra, anthotyro, and manura. The latter, by the way, ripens in a special vessel in the squeezes from red wine and has a truly unique taste. Anthotyro, together with local honey, forms melopita. They sometimes use pumpkin as a pie filling, and as a dessert – almonds, which are simply cooked in a frying pan or in the oven.

However, in Sifnos, you can find a lot of places where you will also be served traditional Greek dishes. To get acquainted with the local cuisine, you should look for taverns where the majority of clients are not travelers but the locals. The establishments designed for "their own", are often held by one family for centuries and have their own traditions of cooking. They do not try to please the taste of foreigners – the formula remains unchanged. The easiest way to find out if you are in the right place or not is to look at the menu. In the local taverns, you will never see a “Greek” salad, just “village” or “homemade”. Horiatiki is made from tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, olives, and onions. The recipe may vary from tavern to tavern, so don't be afraid to order this salad in different places for comparison. Copyright www.orangesmile.com

Those who like meat should be advised to try moussaka, puff casserole of eggplant, potatoes and minced meat with bechamel sauce, or pastitsio, pasta with minced meat. You can try pork chops, roasted on a spit or coals of brizola, and lamb's ribs paidakia, and kotopoulo chicken. It is best to look for meat dishes in special taverns – psistaria. If you want to have a quick snack, then try the local fast food in a souvlatzidiko, a barbecue cafe. Here they serve souvlaki kebabs made from chicken, meat, fish or vegetables in Greek pita with french fries, vegetables, and gyro sauce. However, you can eat souvlaki separately.

Vegetarians should turn their attention to melitzanosalata, a salad from baked eggplants, and tzatziki – thick yogurt with cucumbers and garlic, which is also often served with meat. In the psarotaverna you will be served dishes from fish and seafood. There are a lot of dishes here – boiled, and fried, and baked fish, and salads with seafood, and stewed squids, and fresh mussels without heat treatment with lemon juice. In short, the choice is huge.

Among the desserts on Sifnos, they prefer yogurts, baklava, otherwise called baklavas, and loukoumades. Yogurts, by the way, many eat with almonds and nuts, so the delicacy becomes quite hearty. Of the drinks juices and, of course, coffee are common on the island. Tea is almost never served here – the Greeks drink it only as a medicine for a cold. Among alcohol, you should pay attention to local retsina, grape vodka rakia, anise vodka ouzo. By the way, if you have drunk too much the previous day, it is worth looking for patsatzidiko, where they serve patsas soup, which relieves well of the consequences of immoderate drinking.