Shopping for food in Athens is both entertaining and educational. You can find everything from old-school grocers to specialty delis, butchers, fishmongers and farmers’ markets selling excellent products at reasonable prices. Shop local in Athens and you’ll develop personal relationships with the stall-holders and store owners, who will treat you like a VIP and share their most valuable tips about Greece’s bountiful produce. Above all, you’re getting hand-picked quality. Here’s where to lay your hands on some of the city’s tastiest souvenirs.
Olives, capers and pickles
Ariana is a third generation family business on Theatrou Street, just behind the central Athens vegetable market. With nearly a century of experience as olive vendors, (the business goes back to 1921), you couldn’t be in better hands for all your pickled needs. Choose from 30 different types of olives from the dried throuba to the green tsakisti and the famous Kalamata olives from the Peloponnese. Taste them all if you fancy and decide which one’s your favourite. The prices here are very reasonable and you can create your own preferred mix of different olive varieties—perfect with an ouzo or aperitif. You’ll also find an excellent selection of capers, grape leaves, pickled roots and vegetables.
Everything pickled in a jar.
Photo: Eleni Veziri
Dried herbs stored in wooden drawers here. Pull them open, release their aromas.
Photo: Eleni Veziri
Dried herbs and spices
Evripidou Street, which runs alongside the Central Food Market, is dedicated to spices and herbs. Beautiful aromas waft out of the shops, with garlands of dried vegetables and herbs waving joyfully outside the storefronts. Be sure to check out Elixir, a shop with a great variety of culinary and medicinal herbs stored in old-school cabinets. Stock up on aromatic spices, different types of salt, dried mushrooms, sun-dried tomatoes, truffle oil, seeds, essential oils and superfoods. They also sell chemical-free olive oil soaps, natural sea sponges and loofahs, incense and pumice stones. I recommend you ask for mastiha, a resinous Greek spice with medicinal properties that is often used to flavour pastries and cookies, and organic saffron (known as krokos in Greek), sourced from Kozani in northern Greece, which is much cheaper than the saffron you’ll find in other countries.
Honey and tahini
Kolios is a beautiful shop on Athinas Street that specialises in honey and tahini from small Greek producers (with an emphasis on Kalamata in the Peloponnese). Their range of honeys will make your head spin. For starters, there are pine tree and thyme honeys—two very typical Greek blends. But you can also try white, red or black fir tree honey, sage, heather or antioxidant oak tree honey, “aphrodisiac” honey mixed with walnuts, their own pure honeycomb, or new-age honey fortified with superfoods and spices. You can also source super nutritious bee pollen from Ikaria (a Greek island famous for the longevity of its inhabitants) or the Taygetos mountains in southern Greece. They also do wonderful bee-based cosmetics, including a royal jelly anti-ageing balm. Fill your shopper’s tote with quality tahini (they also do delicious variations flavoured with honey, orange and lemon), halva (a traditional Greek sweet made with sesame paste) honey and fig cookies. If you want to taste something on the spot, dig into their crunchy diples, deep-fried pancake-like rolls dipped in honey and sprinkled with ground walnuts.
Grandma's bread baked in a wood-fired oven, anyone?
Photo: Eleni Veziri
It's not only about coffee.
Photo: Eleni Veziri
Greek coffee
Greece is a nation of caffeine worshippers. And Loumidis is one of the country’s star coffee importers, roasters and suppliers, with a history going back to 1910. Their central Athens flagship store, Kafekopteia Loumidi, opened in 1928 close to Omonia Square and it’s still right in the same spot. Go there to purchase premium coffee from strong, dark to light, blonde roasts or very finely ground for a traditional, unfiltered Greek version. Not in the coffee club? Shop their superb range of teas and cocoa powder, as well as a delicious array of traditional coffee props like cookies, chocolates, nougat and loukoumia (Turkish delight).
Cold cuts and cheese
If you are into cold cuts and cheeses, Karamanlidika tou Fani (Arapian) is your happy place. It’s one of my favourite delis in town and doubles as an all-day-restaurant serving delicious meze. Their first hole-in-the-wall shop opened in 1935 and is still located on Evripidou Street along with their restaurant-deli a few steps away. You’ll fall in love with the exceptional cold cuts from all around the country, like their famous pastourma and pastrami from Drama (northern Greece), louza (cured pork) from Tinos, beef prosciutto and spicy beef salami from Corfu, and black pig ham with truffles from Pieria in northern Greece. They source over 300 types of cheese from around Greece, from sheep’s milk stamnotyri, flavoured with truffle or mastiha, to ladotyri from Zakynthos, arseniko from Naxos, aged goat milk graviera from Kassos, inotyri from Ios, and my favourite spreadable blue cheese from Maltezos farm in Evia. Make sure to check out their new outlet on Ermou Street, where you can watch the chefs bake prosfournia, traditional pizza-like pies in the wood-burning oven, while you get a taste for tsipouro (Greek-style grappa). Finish off with one of their Anatolian inspired desserts, like the delicious künefe, a syrupy concoction made with goat’s milk and shredded wheat.
Cold cut paradise.
Photo: Amalia Kovaiou
"This is the place to try all sorts of hard-to-find artisan Greek cheese."
Dairy
Roumeli is among my favourite food shops in Athens. This family run dairy started off in the early 1950s in Fthiotida, northern Greece and is now run by the second generation. Initially they became known for their PDO feta cheese traditionally matured in wooden barrels—just the way they still make it. This is the place to try all sorts of hard-to-find artisan Greek cheese. They also produce three hard cheeses made with goat and sheep milk (graviera, kefalotyri and kefalisio), galotyri (white creamy cheese) with garlic and parsley, a creamy goat cheese log, votanotyri (goat milk cheese balls marinated in olive oil with dill), tsalafouti (a white, creamy and slightly sour cheese), anthotyro and myzithra (two traditional cheeses made from the whey of feta). Their fresh goat milk is absolutely the best I’ve ever tasted and I also love their yoghurt, buttermilk and butter.
Cretan produce
The story of Zouridakis deli goes back to 1930, when the family opened their first bakery in Chania, Crete. Over the years, they have expanded their business and range of produce. They now own a deli in Piraeus and another near the central Athens food market. I love coming here for their wide range of Cretan delicacies: barley, rye, or oregano and olive oil rusks, hand-made pasta, hand-picked sea salt, tsikoudia (a strong distillate made of grape skin, seeds and some pulp), Cretan cheeses, olives and snails. Other unusual Cretan delicacies that you probably won’t find elsewhere include barley flour, pickled garlic, carob syrup, and cinnamon cordial.
Salty, spicy or smoked?
Photo: Eleni Veziri
Go nuts at Era Nuts.
Photo: Eleni Veziri
Nuts and dried fruit
Era Nuts is a shop specialising in nuts and dried fruit. At their small but smart Kolonaki shop, you’ll find the best roasted chickpeas and almonds in town. Roasted in-house with herbs like rosemary and sage, they are highly addictive and delicious. Pistachios, walnuts, hazelnuts, and countless other nuts—raw or roasted, with or without salt—can be found here, as well as wonderful nut butters and seeds for healthy snacking. If you have more of a sweet tooth, dig into the dried fruit (most of which are sugar-free), chocolate-covered nuts and low-sugar preserves.