Volos is the one Greek city where how you eat is more interesting than what you eat. The tsipouradiko, an institution brought by the refugees of Asia Minor in 1922, inverts the logic of a restaurant: you order the drink, and the food is its accompaniment.
The city has hundreds of them, from the harbour front to the working districts, and a Voliot will tell you that half the point is not knowing what will arrive. The other half is that the bill at the end is small.
What follows is how the round works, what it brings, where to sit and what you will pay.
What is a tsipouradiko, and how does the round work?
A tsipouradiko is a place where the unit of ordering is the karafaki — a 25 ml bottle of tsipouro, with or without anise — and each karafaki arrives with a small meze the kitchen chooses. There is no food menu in the classic sense; there is the order in which the kitchen will feed you.
The round climbs: the first carafe brings something simple, olives or a salad, the third brings fish or octopus, the fifth something cooked. You stop when you are full and pay for the carafes, at €3–5 each, with the meze included.
- Order by the carafe, one at a time, and let the round climb.
- Two people share each carafe's meze; four carafes is dinner.
- With or without anise: they ask on the first one, and then they know.
Which meze arrive with the tsipouro?
The Pagasetic Gulf supplies the ingredients, so the meze are seafood: octopus in vinegar or grilled, mussels steamed or saganaki, prawns, squid, sardines, salted mackerel with peppers, and gouna — mackerel split and sun-dried before it is grilled, the most Voliot dish of all.
Between the seafood comes spetzofai, sausage with peppers and tomato from Pelion, and the meze end with something sweet or a piece of cheese. The whole is a small tour of the cooking of Magnesia that you never had to order.
Read nextA guide to traditional Greek dishes and where they come from
Where are the tsipouradika: the seafront, Palia or Nea Ionia?
The Argonafton seafront has the most visible tsipouradika and the most visible bills: tables at the water, a view of Pelion, and a carafe one to two euros dearer. It is the place for the first evening and not the second.
Palia, the old quarter around the railway station, and Nea Ionia, the refugee district where the institution was born, have the places working for Voliots: smaller, louder, with more generous meze and a carafe at €3–4. Larissa, an hour west, does the same with Thessalian meat instead of fish.
- Argonafton seafront: the view, the crowd, a carafe at €4–5.
- Palia: old places near the station, generous meze, €3–4.
- Nea Ionia: the refugee district, the most authentic table in town.
What does an evening in a tsipouradiko cost?
The tsipouradiko is one of the cheapest ways to dine in Greece, because the food is not charged separately. Two people with five carafes leave having paid €25–35 in total, that is €12–16 each, with ten meze and half a litre of tsipouro on the table.
The hour matters less here than elsewhere, because the round is already a discount, but the seafront places fill after nine and the first sitting at seven is empty — which is where quiet-hour bookings on Filotimo work, taking half off the food at the places that also carry a regular menu. The table gives the ranges.
| Area | Carafe with meze | Two people, five carafes |
|---|---|---|
| Argonafton seafront | €4–5 | €30–40 |
| Palia | €3–4 | €24–32 |
| Nea Ionia | €3–4 | €22–30 |
| Anavros | €4–5 | €28–36 |
| Centre, around Ermou | €3.50–4.50 | €26–34 |
| Pelion, the villages | €3.50–5 | €26–36 |
Volos is the city where the cheapest dinner in Greece is also the most entertaining. Sit in Palia, order one carafe at a time, and let the kitchen decide what you are going to eat.
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.