Practicalities
Athens
How do you book a restaurant in Athens and pay less?
Booking in Athens is easier than in most European capitals and more useful than visitors expect — particularly if you book the hour the city has not filled yet.
7 min read
The Filotimo journal
Eat well in Greece, pay less
Practical guides to Greek food and half-price tables.
Eating well in Greece costs less than most visitors expect: budget €2–4 for breakfast, €4–7 for a street lunch and €15–20 a head for a taverna dinner. Eating earlier and two streets inland cuts that by thirty to fifty per cent, and Filotimo's partner restaurants take half off the food bill at off-peak tables.
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LatestGreek food · Chalkida
Seafood in Chalkida: the fish of the Euripus strait
Chalkida is where Athens goes for fish: an hour's drive, a strait that reverses its current, and a seafront lined with ouzeri. What to order, and where.
The Euripus strait reverses its current several times a day, and the seafront with the ouzeri looks straight down on it.
6 min readRead the guide
Start here
- How to eat cheap in Greece without eating badlyEating cheaply in Greece is not about settling for less. It is about knowing the hours, the dishes and the streets where the same food costs half as much.11 min read
- How dining discount apps work, from the restaurant's sideTo judge a dining discount you have to understand who is paying for it. Here is the money, from the restaurant's side of the pass.6 min read
- What to eat in Greece: twenty dishes worth orderingBeyond moussaka: the twenty dishes that tell you what Greek cooking is really about, and how to build a table out of them.6 min read
- How much does food cost in Greece? A practical price guideGreece is cheap or expensive depending entirely on where you stand. Here are the real numbers — per plate, per table and per day — and where the price stops being the price.8 min read
Every guide
Greek food
Larissa
Where to eat in Larissa, city of tsipouro and meat
Larissa is the city Greeks know as the capital of tsipouro-with-meze and good meat. Where to sit and what you will pay.
6 min read
Practicalities
Tipping in Greece: what is normal and what is not
Tipping in Greece is modest, optional and widely misunderstood by visitors who leave twenty per cent out of habit. Here is what people who live here actually do.
7 min read
Practicalities
How much does food cost in Greece? A practical price guide
Greece is cheap or expensive depending entirely on where you stand. Here are the real numbers — per plate, per table and per day — and where the price stops being the price.
8 min read
Greek food
Kalamata
Kalamata food guide: oil, olives and the sea
Kalamata is the city of the olive and the oil, with a four-kilometre seafront and an old town that eats Messinian. What to order, and where.
6 min read
Greek food
Patras
Where to eat in Patras, port and student city
Patras is a port, a university and the carnival city, and it eats accordingly: cheaply, late and in groups. Where to sit and what you will pay.
6 min read
Greek food
Athens
Where to eat in Athens, neighbourhood by neighbourhood
Athens is not one restaurant city but eight small ones, and they are ten minutes apart. Here is what each is good at, and what a meal in it actually costs.
7 min read
Greek food
Athens
What is the best dining experience in Athens?
The best meals in Athens are rarely the costliest. Here is what actually makes an evening in this city, and how to arrange one.
6 min read
Greek food
Ioannina
Ioannina food guide: pies, the lake and the sweets
Ioannina eats like Epirus: hand-rolled pies, fish from the lake, sweets made with sheep's milk. What to order, and where.
6 min read
Spending less
Santorini
Santorini on a food budget: a day-by-day plan
What eating on Santorini actually costs if you plan it — a worked daily budget, meal by meal, without giving up the island.
6 min read
Greek food
Volos
The tsipouradika of Volos: how the round works
In Volos you do not order food but tsipouro, and the food comes on its own. How the ritual works, where to sit and what you will pay.
6 min read
Greek food
Nafplio
Where to eat in Nafplio, Greece's weekend town
Nafplio is two hours from Athens and prices like a weekend away. Where to sit and when, so you do not pay Athenian prices.
5 min read
Spending less
Santorini
Cheap eats on Santorini: how do you avoid the caldera tax?
Santorini charges for the view, not the food. Move away from the caldera edge and the island becomes surprisingly affordable.
8 min read
Spending less
Where to find the best lunch deals in Greece
Greek lunch is the country's great undervalued meal: the day's best cooking, served at the quietest hours, for less than dinner costs.
6 min read
Spending less
Rethymno
Cheap eats in Rethymno: a student town in disguise
Rethymno has a Venetian old town, a tourist harbour and ten thousand students. The third is what keeps prices down, if you know where to walk.
6 min read
Spending less
Off-peak dining in Greece: the cheapest hours to eat
Greek restaurants fill late. The hours before the rush are the best value in the country, and increasingly they are discounted outright.
6 min read
Greek food
Corfu
Corfu food guide: the Venetian dishes to order
Four hundred Venetian years and no Ottoman rule gave Corfu a kitchen unlike any other in Greece. What to order, and where it is cooked properly.
6 min read
Greek food
Rhodes
Where to eat in Rhodes, past the Old Town trap
Rhodes has the finest medieval lanes in Greece and some of its worst restaurants, sometimes on the same corner. Where to turn, and what to order.
6 min read
Dining apps
The best kind of dining app to have in Greece
There are four kinds of dining app worth having in Greece, and they do genuinely different jobs. Here is what each is for.
6 min read
Dining apps
Comparing restaurant discount apps: what to look at
Discount apps look identical from the outside. These five differences are the ones that decide whether you save money or just move it around.
6 min read
Greek food
Heraklion
Where to eat in Heraklion, Crete's working capital
Heraklion is not a resort but a working city, and the prices show it. Where the rakadika are, what the market does, and what a table actually costs.
6 min read
Greek food
A guide to traditional Greek dishes and where they come from
Greek cooking is regional before it is national. Knowing which dish belongs where explains why the same menu tastes different a hundred kilometres away.
6 min read
Greek food
What to eat in Greece: twenty dishes worth ordering
Beyond moussaka: the twenty dishes that tell you what Greek cooking is really about, and how to build a table out of them.
6 min read
Greek food
Chania
What to eat in Chania: the dishes that matter
Boureki, kalitsounia, sfakiani pita, snails fried upside down: Chania has dishes you will not meet anywhere else in Greece. What to order, and where.
6 min read
Greek food
Greek food for first-time visitors: a plain guide
Greek restaurants work differently from northern European ones. Understanding how takes ten minutes and improves every meal of your trip.
6 min read
Greek food
Thessaloniki
Where to eat in Thessaloniki, street by street
Thessaloniki eats cheaper and later than Athens, and everything worth eating fits inside a twenty-minute walk. Here is what each quarter does well, and what it costs.
6 min read
Spending less
Athens
The best cheap eats in Athens, by what you actually want
Athens does cheap food better than almost any European capital. This is what to eat, roughly what it costs, and which part of the city to look in.
7 min read
Spending less
Athens
How to pick an affordable taverna in Athens
A taverna is a specific thing, not a generic word for restaurant. Knowing what it is makes finding a good, cheap one in Athens straightforward.
6 min read
Dining apps
How dining discount apps work, from the restaurant's side
To judge a dining discount you have to understand who is paying for it. Here is the money, from the restaurant's side of the pass.
6 min read
Dining apps
Half-price dining apps: is the discount real?
A fifty per cent discount on food sounds like a trick. It is not — it is what an empty table at seven in the evening is genuinely worth to a restaurant.
8 min read
Spending less
Nine ways to save money dining out in Greece
Nine things that reliably lower a restaurant bill in Greece, ranked by how much they actually save and how little they cost you in enjoyment.
8 min read
Spending less
How to eat cheap in Greece without eating badly
Eating cheaply in Greece is not about settling for less. It is about knowing the hours, the dishes and the streets where the same food costs half as much.
11 min read
Common questions
How much does dinner cost in Greece?
A taverna dinner runs about €15–20 a head with a shared starter and a carafe of wine. Breakfast is €2–4, a souvlaki or street lunch €4–7. Tourist-facing streets and waterfront views add thirty to fifty per cent for the same cooking.
Is eating out in Greece expensive?
No — by western European standards it is cheap, and cheap rarely means worse here, because the national dishes are peasant cooking. What costs money is location and hour: a view and a nine o'clock table are the two things you pay a premium for.
How does half-price dining in Greece work?
A restaurant's rent, staff and gas cost the same whether the room is full or empty, so a discounted table at seven is revenue that would not otherwise exist. Filotimo books those off-peak tables at half off the food bill; drinks are charged as normal.
What time do Greeks eat dinner?
Late. Nine to eleven at night is normal, and a restaurant that is empty at eight is not a bad restaurant. The first sitting, roughly 6.30 to 8pm, is the quietest hour of the evening — and the one where discounted tables are available.
What should I order in a Greek taverna?
Order across the menu and share rather than one main each. Ask for the magirefta — the day's slow-cooked pot dishes, listed on a board or shown in the kitchen. They cost less than grilled meat or fish and are what the kitchen actually cooked that morning.
Do you tip in Greece?
Tipping is customary but modest: round up, or leave five to ten per cent on a full restaurant meal. Service is not automatically included. The cover charge for bread is not a tip — it goes to the restaurant, not the waiter.