The Cretan diet is famous for being healthy, but people come back for how good it tastes. It's simple, seasonal food built on olive oil, wild greens, fresh cheese, pulses, a little meat and a lot of herbs. Recipes change from village to village, and every grandmother has her own version. Here are the dishes worth looking for, and what's behind them.
Salads and mezedes
- Dakos: the island's best known dish. A hard barley rusk is softened with a little water and olive oil, then topped with grated tomato, crumbled mizithra or feta, oregano and more oil. Simple and perfect with a cold drink.
- Stamnagathi: a wild green from the chicory family that grows on rocky ground. It's eaten boiled with lemon and oil, raw in salads, or cooked with meat. Its slightly bitter taste is typically Cretan.
- Askordoulakoi: the bulbs of a wild plant, pickled in vinegar and oil. A tangy salad that locals love with raki.
- Chochlioi boubouristi: snails fried face down (amboumboura) in hot olive oil with salt, then finished with vinegar and rosemary. A classic meze, especially in spring and during Lent.
- Horta: a plate of boiled wild greens, simply dressed. Ask what's in season.
Cheese pies and pastries
Pies are everywhere in Crete, and every region has its own shape and filling.
- Kalitsounia: small pies with fresh cheese, usually sweet mizithra, or with wild greens. They can be fried or baked, open or closed. Kaltsounakia with fennel are a lovely spring version.
- Sarikopites: spiral pies of thin pastry filled with sour mizithra, named after the sariki, the traditional Cretan headscarf, because of the way they're rolled. Fried and often served with honey.
- Mizithropites nerates: very thin pies of mizithra made with a watery dough that's spread in the pan, also eaten with honey.
- Sfakiani pita: a thin pancake from Sfakia with cheese inside, drizzled with honey.
- Bougatsa of Chania: a pastry filled with tangy Chaniot mizithra, sprinkled with sugar. Have it for breakfast with a coffee.
- Chaniotiko boureki: a bake of courgettes, potatoes, mizithra and mint, sometimes in pastry. Summer on a plate.
- Kreatotourta: the meat pie of Chania, filled with lamb or goat and cheese, the meat going in raw and cooking inside the pie.
- Tzoulamas: a Carnival meat pie from the Messara with lamb or beef, offal, rice, herbs and spices.
Main dishes
- Gamopilafo: the wedding rice. Lamb and rooster are boiled for hours and the rice is cooked in the rich broth, then finished with staka or butter and lemon. Served at weddings and big celebrations, a symbol of abundance.
- Staka with eggs: staka is made from the cream that forms when sheep and goat milk is heated. Eggs are fried in it for a rich, savoury dish, usually eaten with bread.
- Goat (or lamb) with stamnagathi: a fricassee with wild greens and egg-lemon sauce, a typical winter and spring dish.
- Antikristo: lamb roasted slowly beside an open fire, a speciality of the mountain villages like Anogia.
- Kapriko: pork from a male boar roasted slowly, celebrated every year in the village of Galatas near Heraklion.
- Mesaritiko with aubergines: a Messara version of moussaka with roasted aubergine and tangy xinomizithra cheese.
- Sofegada: the Cretan ratatouille from Lasithi, a summer pot of courgettes, aubergines, potatoes, peppers and tomatoes, slowly cooked in olive oil.
Pasta and bread
- Skioufichta: hand-made twisted pasta, made by rolling small pieces of dough (skioufizo means to twist). Served with butter, grated anthotiro cheese or staka, or in tomato sauce with meat.
- Eftazymo bread: a bread made with a natural starter from chickpeas, kneaded and left to rise many times (the name means seven times leavened). It has a dense texture and a slightly sweet aroma, and is made for special occasions.
- Paximadia: barley rusks, dried slowly so they keep for months. The base of dakos and of many meals in the fields.
Sweets
- Lychnarakia: little open pies with sweet mizithra, shaped like small oil lamps (lychnari), baked for Easter.
- Anevata kalitsounia: the leavened version of kalitsounia, also an Easter sweet.
- Patouda: pastries filled with nuts, honey and spices, dusted with sugar, made for weddings and holidays.
- Xerotigana: crispy fried spirals of dough soaked in honey and sprinkled with sesame and walnuts.
- Loukoumades: small doughnuts with honey and cinnamon.
- Many tavernas bring a small free sweet with your raki, like yoghurt with honey or a slice of cake.
Eating like a local
Order a few dishes for the table and share. Lunch is the main meal, dinner starts late, often after nine. Ask what's cooked today (magirefta) rather than only looking at the menu, and when the raki arrives at the end, it's a sign the evening went well.
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Updated: 2026-10-29
