If you eat one substantial meal a day in Greece, it should be lunch. Not for any dietary reason, but because Greek kitchens cook in the morning and serve their best work in the afternoon, at prices that have nothing in common with the evening.
This is where the value actually is, and how to find it in a town you have never been to before.
Why is Greek lunch cheaper than Greek dinner?
Two reasons, and both are structural. The magireuta — the trays of stewed, baked and stuffed dishes — are cooked once in the morning in quantity, which is far cheaper than cooking to order, and they are priced accordingly. And lunch service is short and thinly attended, so restaurants price it to fill.
The result is that the same building serves its most labour-intensive food at its lowest prices, between about two and four in the afternoon. Nowhere else in the day does that combination happen.
What should you look for on a lunch menu?
The signal is the daily list: a handwritten or printed sheet of the day's cooked dishes, separate from the main menu. Where it exists, lunch is real. Where the only menu is the laminated one, the kitchen is grilling to order and the price will reflect it.
The other signal is a room full of people who are obviously working. Municipal offices, markets, hospitals and ports all have magiria near them serving fast, cheap, extremely good food to people with forty-five minutes.
- A separate daily sheet of cooked dishes: the strongest sign of a real lunch.
- Near a market, port or municipal building: reliable and cheap.
- Trays visible behind glass: order by pointing, which is also the fastest way.
- Finished by four: the sign that everything was made that morning.
What should a good lunch cost?
A plate of the day's cooked dish with bread, in an ordinary Greek town: seven to ten euros. Add a salad to share and a beer and you are at twelve to fifteen. In the centre of Athens the same lunch runs ten to fourteen; on the premium islands in August, add half again.
Below that, there is the bakery — a pie and a coffee for three to four euros — and the grill, where a wrapped souvlaki is three to four and a half. Both are proper lunches, not snacks.
| Lunch | Where | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Pita, wrapped and eaten walking | Souvlaki shop | €3.50–5 |
| Cheese pie and a coffee | Bakery | €3–5 |
| A plate of the day's stew with bread | Magirio | €8–12 |
| Two shared plates and a salad | Taverna, off-peak | €10–14 a head |
| The full menu at half price | Booked quiet hour | €9–13 a head |
Read nextHow much does food cost in Greece? A practical price guide
What are the formal lunch deals?
Set business lunches are less common in Greece than in France or Italy, but they exist in the cities, particularly around office districts in Athens and Thessaloniki, and they are typically a plate and a drink for a fixed low price between one and four.
The more systematic version is off-peak booking. Restaurants that would otherwise sit empty in the afternoon publish those hours at a discount: on Filotimo, partner restaurants take fifty per cent off the food bill during their off-peak hours, drinks charged as normal, with a service fee starting at six euros for one person. Applied to lunch, it produces a restaurant meal at magirio prices.
Read nextOff-peak dining in Greece: the cheapest hours to eat
How does a Greek eat lunch?
Lunch here is not a sandwich at a desk. It is a sit-down meal at two or three in the afternoon, usually shared, frequently with a beer, and followed by not doing very much for an hour. In summer, that hour is a matter of survival rather than indulgence.
Arranging your day around a proper Greek lunch and a light dinner is both cheaper and, in July, considerably more pleasant than the reverse. It is also how you end up eating the food the country is actually good at.
Greek lunch is the meal the country cooks hardest for and charges least for. Find the daily sheet, arrive at two, and you will eat the best thing in the building for less than dinner would have cost you.
How this guide is kept honest
Written in Athens by the team behind Filotimo, from the menus, prices and bookings we see across our partner restaurants. Prices move with the season and the street, so every figure here is a working range rather than a quote.