One of the best ways to experience a new city is through their food. It takes a lot of research to find the best local foods and the best local restaurants. And that’s exactly why we love food tours, especially if we only have a day or two to fully take in the city. Greeking.me food tours are perfect for foodies.
Athens By Night Food Tour & Wine Tasting
While Greeking.me offers many different types of tours (not all of the food and not all in Athens), we went for it with the Athens by night food tour & wine tasting. Truth be told, it seemed like we’d get to sample many different Greek specialties, so we saved our stomach space for dinner, so we were in it to win it.
What is included?
We got to check out a few different restaurants plus a wine bar. The wine bar included a tasting of 5 different wines. The best part is we had a local guide! That was great because she was super knowledge about food of course, but also Greek history.
The tour is 4 hours long and a small group tour. We had four other people in our group, plus the host. It was the perfect size for meeting new people, but still small enough you could ask the guide as many questions as you wanted.
What types of Greek food did we try?
The cool thing about Greeking.me food tours is that it’s not one food item per restaurant. We had several dishes at each place, which meant we got to try a ton of new dishes. Here were some of the highlights:
- Homemade cheese pie with fig sauce
- Fava beans
- Baked Feta with tomato
- Ouzo
- Egg, tomatoes, and potato
- Beef with potatoes
- Cabbage rolls
You can probably tell from the list, these are traditional Greek specialties you may not stumble upon yourself. When we researched, we got the typical stuffed grapes, baklava, gyros, moussaka, saganaki, and souvlaki. All very delicious. But what set this food tour apart is that the dishes were unconventional from what you see on these “top greek foods to try” lists. You end up tasting under-the-radar, yet traditional menu items.
What were the restaurants like?
One of the highlights from Greeking.me food tours is the variety of restaurants. Every place we went was so different from the others. And none was a chain. One was modern and the other was a small family run place owned by two twin sisters.
When we went to the family run place, they saw how interested we were in their story and invited Nick back to the kitchen. They explained some of their dishes and it was a truly unique experience. It’s moments like that which make the food tour memorable. And these are places we likely would not have stumbled upon ourselves.
How full did we get?
A lot of food tours out there offer bite sized portions at each stop. Do we eat dinner first or will we get filled up on the tour? That was our question. We opted to head out with empty bellies. Turns out, it was the right call.
We were stuffed. At each stop, they serve family style. Giant bowls and you take a serving of each dish. Often seconds were something that happened. I was pleasantly surprised. Not only do they fill you with food, but you end of a full wine tasting. We left as two happy foodies.
Who should take a Greeking.me food tour?
The Greeking.me tours are made with every type of traveler in mind. Some adventurous dishes, and some more similar to what you may be used to eating. Is it right for everyone? For many people we’d highly recommend try out this food tour, for example, if you:
- Are into meeting new people and be able to share stories in a small group
- Enjoy trying new foods
- Find walking tours enjoyable
- You can commit 4 hours in the evening.
If you have kids or you don’t like wine, try the Greeking.me Athens for Foodies: A Greek Gastronomy Tour; that one takes place earlier in the day. Or the Zorba Inside Me: Greek Dance Lesson & Dinner. If you bring your dancing shoes.
