Souvlakia and Greek Street Food

With so many cafes offering meze as snacks and light meals, Greece has less need for a variety of street foods than many countries. The Greeks like to sit over their food enjoying wine and conversation, rather than eat on the run and the meze tradition has grown up to fill the need for eating between meals. However there are some traditional Greek foods that are perfect for street food and which are a much loved part of authentic Greek cuisine, successfully defying the onslaught of hamburger chains in the cities of Greece.

Souvlakia are char-grilled kebabs of lamb, chicken or pork, grilled to tenderness over coals. You can find them on the menu in restaurants where they will be served on plates, with rice and salad, but the best way of eating them, if you are after some fast food, is bundled into a wrap of pita bread, along with some tomato and onion, parsley and some garlicky tzatziki.

To order this in Greece and make sure of getting what you want it is best to ask for pitta-souvlaki for pork, pitta-kebab for lamb, pitta-mpifteki for minced beef and pitta-kotopoulo for chicken. There are so many variations that if you just ask for souvlaki you could find that you are given a platter of kebabs or a bread sandwich with a kebab, depending on where you are in Greece. Warming your hands on a flavoursome bundle of pitta with succulent meat and plenty of garlicky sauce is a really authentic Greek street food experience.

A pitta -gyro (pronounce yee-roh) is a similar pita wrap but with meat sliced from the big rotating spit (like a doner kebab) and is usually pork or a mixture of pork and lamb. These are just as traditional as the souvlaki kebab and sometimes also called souvlakia just to add to the confusion!

Eating in a Greek restaurant in Britain, you can still enjoy the flavours of Greek street food, and souvlakia, but they are more likely to be presented on a plate with pitta bread alongside. Make sure you eat them with plenty of tzatziki for the real flavour of Greece and check that they are char-grilled, just as if they’d been barbecued at the side of a street in Athens itself.

Why not view Nicky’s Lounge -  a great Greek restaurant in Derby.