Apokoronou 24, Chania 731 35, Greece. Phone: +30 2821 0088855

Worth visiting in a 6-mile radius.

Bougatsa Iordanis is a hidden gem, blending into the bustling main streets of downtown Chania with its plain facade. This hole-in-the-wall bougatsa cafe certainly does not cater to tourists, with its 20 or so seats filled with elderly locals getting their morning pastry and coffee. This is a wonderful little joint that anyone in Chania should visit.

Bougatsa is a traditional Greek breakfast item made with phyllo pastry, powdered sugar, and soft cheese. Bougatsa Iordanis has been serving bougatsa, and only bougatsa, since 1924, and is a cornerstone of Chanian culture. As you walk into the cafe there are two workers in the front corner, one keeping the enormous chunks of bougatsa warm on a piece of hot metal, and one at the cash register. Bougatsa is ordered at 3 euros per generous portion—a very good deal.

The bougatsa is very satisfying, stuffed full of rich, fatty cheese that is just a tad sour. The phyllo pastry is buttery and flaky, and falls apart very easily. The sprinkling of powdered sugar on top adds just a bit of sweetness.

Perfect for a quick stop to fill up on delicious pastry and a great way to start your morning, I highly recommend Bougatsa Iordanis.

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Vivilaki 35, Chania 731 00, Greece. Phone: +30 2821 051136

Worth visiting in a 30 mile radius.

Dining at Thalassino Ageri is an experience I’ll never forget. The tables (which are all outdoors) are set right up against the calm waters of the Mediterranean. In the evening, diners watch the sunset over the town of Chania, which is about 2 kilometers to the west. The restaurant building, where bathrooms are located and dishes are washed, seems to be the only one alive in the neighborhood. The others are decayed shells of old tanneries in what used to be a booming industrial area. As diners enjoy their seafood, cats slink around their feet meowing for a morsel of swordfish here and a bit of oyster there. At most restaurants such an amazing location would make the customers forget about the food. At Thalassino Ageri, the food makes the customers forget about the location.

Thalassino Ageri’s extensive menu features seafood and salad options, with everything from cuttlefish to sea urchin to beetroot salad. However, they have exactly one meat dish one the menu (pork cutlet), so if you do not like seafood, don’t bother making the trip out here.

My favorite appetizer of the three we ordered was the fried anchovies. The light batter did not mask the taste of the anchovies, and it gave the fish a nice crunch. I also enjoyed the grilled octopus, which is done very simply; it is served in a vinegar sauce with a wedge of lemon. These two ingredients enhanced the octopus meat by adding a delicious sour touch. The octopus itself was fresh and cooked well: crispy on the outside without being overcooked. The final appetizer was steamed mussels in olive oil sauce. These mussels were among the most plump I’d ever had.. The flavor was really brought out by steaming the mussels.

The main entree that my family and I ordered was two whole snappers cooked fresh. They looked lovely as they arrived on our table, garnished with herbs and tomatoes and not filleted as is found commonly in America. Although the whole fish was quite bony, what meat we did get was flavorful and rich with herbs and olive oil.

For complimentary dessert we were served a square of custard topped with chopped nuts, which was delicious and lemony. We were also served a plate of wonderfully juicy watermelon (seeds still in!).

Thalassino Ageri is a seafood lover’s heaven. Although it can be a bit pricey, the quality is well worth it. There are really no drawbacks to this beautiful restaurant.

 

 

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Akti Papanikoli 1, Chania, 731 31, Greece. Phone: +30 2821 076261

Worth visiting in a 45 mile radius.

Portes is ideally situated a little west of the main Chanian harbor where things are a little quieter, about 50 meters away from the town beach. There is outdoor seating both on a ledge right above a little harbor and right next to it, so diners can pick the height from which they want to gaze out over the ocean.

The menu is expansive. It includes every kind of seafood imaginable and also quite a few appetizers and meat entrees, not to mention a long list of daily specials.

I highly recommend the “Dip in the Sea” appetizer. It consists of mussels and various kinds of fish with pepper slices and herbs in an olive oil sauce. The fish and peppers were fresh and delicious. This is a good dish to order for the taste of a variety of seafood. Another appetizer that I enjoyed was the fried anchovies wrapped in grape leaves. At first, I was unsure about eating anchovies whole, but this is great snack food. The anchovies are crispy like french fries and are nestled inside the grape leaves like little rolls. The octopus carpaccio was also tasty, though I didn’t like it quite as much as the others. The raw octopus was very juicy and delicious, but I think too much dill was used in this dish.

The beef with wine sauce was an excellent entree. The meat was cooked perfectly and the wine sauce added a lot of rich flavor. The accompanying mashed potatoes were my favorite kind: not completely pureéd, with a few chunks of potatoes, but still creamy. I enjoyed the combination of potatoes with wine sauce. The other entree, chicken kiev (a fried roll of chicken with butter, garlic, and herbs), wasn’t Greek at all, but still amazing. Although the kiev was crispy on the outside, when I bit into it, chicken juice coursed into my mouth, along with the wonderful flavor of garlic. Alongside this dish were a cluster of Greek fries, which are larger and taste more like actual potato than French fries. Dill was also used to season these fries, but not in excess.

For a complimentary dessert we were served a delicious custard tart with sweet apricot on top. With it came a little bottle of ouzo.

Portes is my overall favorite restaurant in Chania. It has fresh seafood, a perfect location, a great views, delicious entrees, very reasonable prices, and polite service. What’s not to like?

 

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Plateon 15, Athina 104 35, Greece. Phone: +30 21 0346 2983

Worth visiting in a 6 mile radius.

On my trip to Greece, I ate at many small seaside tavernas and down-home eateries that provided good examples of classic Greek food: simple, hearty cooking in a casual setting. Thus, I was interested to try Athiri, which is an upscale restaurant. It was recommended by the Michelin Guide, so I had high hopes. Athiri is located in the Keramikos neighborhood of Athens, a place that is still gritty (think graffiti) but starting to gentrify, with classy restaurants like Athiri dotting the area.

Athiri’s interior consists of a warm, leafy courtyard surrounded by walls which cats like to climb on. Trees shade diners from the blazing Athenian sun. There is also indoor seating for colder weather.

Every dish on Athiri’s menu is Greek, but most have little fancy twists that vary from how the dish is normally made. Unlike other Greek restaurants, you have to pay for bread. The reason I mention the bread is that it is quite unusual. The taste and texture is more like a whole-wheat biscuit than bread and it surprised me when it came to our table. If Athiri billed this as something other than bread, it would be more appealing to diners.

The rest of the menu is hit-or-miss. Some of the dishes have combinations of ingredients that I think are great additions to Greek food, while other combinations are not at all tasty.

Our meal was started with a complimentary shot glass full of cold tomato soup, which was good, thick and rich, even though I usually do not like cold soup very much.

The seasonal greens with orange sauce and pistachios were a disappointment. The greens were soggy and unappetizing while the orange sauce and pistachios were odd additions. However, the sea bass tartare, which came next, was a pleasant surprise. I didn’t really know what to expect when ordering it, but I ended up enjoying the dish. I would compare it to ceviche, as it consisted of chopped sea bass with a lot of lime on top. I like almost everything with lime in it and this was no exception.

The rooster kebap with “handmade small pie” (similar to pita bread), beetroot sauce, and apricots was a great dish, but I see room for improvement. The rooster meat itself was juicy and I liked the spices that were incorporated into the ground meat. The pie was good when wrapped around the rooster. However, the remaining two ingredients, the beetroot sauce and apricots, didn’t go very well with the rest of the appetizer. The beetroot cream was very flavorful and probably could have been used in another dish, but in the rooster kebap it obscured the flavor of the rooster, as did the apricot. A sauce that was creamy rather than bitter, such as tzatziki, might work better for this particular dish.

The best appetizer was the fava beans with caramelized onion and sweet tomatoes. When it arrived on our table, it looked like little more than yellow mush, something a baby would eat. However, the fava beans were very filling, and both the caramelized onion and the sweet tomato provided the sweet touch that the fava lacked.

We ordered a lamb entree and a beef entree, and found very different quality in the two dishes. The meat in the beef tagliata was boring. The greens one the side were similar to the soggy greens that were served in our first appetizer.

On the other hand, the lamb with baby onions, lemon sauce and green beans was excellent, something that I would expect from a restaurant of Athiri’s caliber. Lamb is not usually one of my favorite meats, but it was very tender and the baby onions it was served with were delicious. The green beans weren’t overcooked at all and went well with the lamb.

For dessert we ordered the creme brulee, which is like a sampling platter; it comes in three different flavors! The caramel is classic and is great for people who are used to normal creme brulee, the Greek coffee (my personal favorite) is very strong and just as sweet, and the orange cardamon is fruity and also delicious, although the taste of the orange cardamon filling with the caramel covering is one that I’m not entirely sure I like.

Prices for entrees range from 14-19 euros, so when coupled with appetizers and desserts, dinner at this restaurant makes for a pricey meal. Overall, Athiri is inconsistent in its creative takes on Greek food, with some dishes being very impressive and others not at all. If you order selectively, you can end up with a great meal.

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Akti Enoseos, Chania 731 00, Greece. Phone: +30 2821 059074

Worth visiting in an 8 mile radius.

I love Greek cuisine for its simplicity and unpretentiousness. The dishes are not overly marinated or stuffed with spices. This style of cooking lends well to casual, no-frills dining, which is exactly what you’ll find at Glossitses. Glossitses is a traditional taverna in the heart of Chania, an old port city on the island of  Crete. It’s along the beautiful harbor overlooking an old Venetian lighthouse where tourists stroll and dine and yachts dock. Although Chania is packed to the brim with restaurants, Glossitses stands out because of its authentic food right on the touristy harbor.

My tasty pork was garnished with lemon sauce, which was a new experience because I’d never had tart pork before. The grilled cuttlefish with a fresh salad was tender but not rubbery. The grilled octopus was a very similar dish, but the meat was crispier. The dish that really stood out was the tuna steak. My previous culinary experiences with tuna were almost all with lunchmeat tuna, which is slathered in mayonnaise and mustard and barely tastes like fish. The tuna steak at Glossitses is a refreshing reminder of what tuna should be. As with most Greek seafood, the tuna was mostly left alone except for some salt, which brought out the flavor of the fresh tuna. Glossitses’s tuna steaks made me really appreciate tuna for something other than a sandwich filling.

In many authentic Greek restaurants, after the main course is finished the waitstaff will bring you a little complimentary dessert and drink to finish your meal. At Glossitses, it’s a small square of a lemony dessert that is between a custard and a cake, and a small bottle of sweet white wine. I appreciate this custom because it shows generosity of a restaurant and allows you to sample foods you might not have ordered otherwise.

Glossitses is an excellent introduction for those who have never tried Greek food before. The prices are very reasonable and the dishes are authentic and filling.