Most disappointing meals in Greece are not the restaurant's fault. They come from ordering a Greek menu as though it were a French one — one starter, one main, one dessert, at eight in the evening — which is a reasonable habit applied to a system it does not fit.
Greek eating has its own shape. Once you know it, the food gets better and the bill gets smaller at the same time, which is an unusually good deal for ten minutes of reading.
How is a Greek meal shared rather than sequenced?
A Greek table orders a spread. Several small dishes arrive more or less together, everyone eats from all of them, and one or two larger things — a grill, a fish, a baked dish — join in the middle. There is no strict order and nothing is really yours.
This is why ordering one main each is both more expensive and less enjoyable: you get less variety and you pay for the priciest items on the menu. Two to three small plates per person, plus one or two things to split, is the standard and it is plenty.
Read nextWhat to eat in Greece: twenty dishes worth ordering
When do Greeks actually eat?
Breakfast is small and often eaten standing up: coffee and a pie or a koulouri. Lunch is the substantial meal and runs from about two to four. Dinner starts late — restaurants fill from half past nine and stay busy past midnight in summer.
For a visitor this is useful information twice over. Eating lunch at two puts you in front of the day's cooked dishes at their best, and eating dinner at seven puts you in an empty restaurant that is very willing to make you a price.
- Breakfast: coffee and a pastry, two to four euros.
- Lunch: two to four in the afternoon, the main meal, best value of the day.
- Dinner: from half past nine, later in summer, and the most expensive sitting.
| Meal | Greek hours | What it means for you |
|---|---|---|
| Breakfast | Coffee and something from a bakery, on the way | Hotel buffets are for hotels |
| Lunch | 2pm–4pm | The cheapest hot meal of the day |
| Afternoon | Coffee, 5pm–8pm | Kitchens are quiet, discounts live here |
| Dinner | 9pm–11.30pm | Full rooms, full prices, best atmosphere |
What should you order first?
If you order nothing else in Greece, order these. Horta: boiled wild greens with lemon and oil, the most Greek thing on any menu. Gigantes: giant butter beans baked in tomato. Fava: yellow split pea puree with raw onion. Tzatziki, made properly, with garlic that announces itself.
Then a grill — pork or lamb chops, or gyros brought to the table on a plate — and a Greek salad, which contains no lettuce and should be a slab of feta on tomatoes and cucumber with oregano and oil. Bread comes with everything and is usually charged for.
What is worth knowing before the bill?
Service is included by law, so tipping is a courtesy rather than an obligation; rounding up or leaving five to ten per cent is normal and appreciated. A cover or bread charge of about a euro a head is legal and should be printed on the menu.
Water is usually sold bottled, though tap water is drinkable across most of the mainland and you can ask for it. House wine, sold by the kilo, is a great deal cheaper than bottles and is frequently good.
How do you avoid overpaying?
Two habits do most of the work. Walk two or three streets away from whatever the view is — the price of a Greek meal is set largely by what you can see from the table. And eat at Greek hours rather than at northern European ones.
The second of those can be turned into an actual discount. Restaurants in Athens and beyond release their quiet early-evening tables at half price on the food through Filotimo; drinks are paid as normal and the booking fee starts at six euros for one person. It rewards exactly the habit that makes the food better anyway.
Greek food is generous, informal and much cheaper than its reputation, provided you eat it the way it was designed to be eaten: shared, at the right hours, two streets away from the view.
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.