Before even touching down in the capital of Greece, we knew that we wanted to sample as many of the best things to eat in Athens as we could… and that we wanted to sign up for an Athens food tour to ensure we learned all about Greek cuisine along the way.
Greek food has an amazing reputation, and we couldn’t wait to dive into it ourselves.
After a long, interesting, and delicious Athens food tour, we absolutely stand by our initial impression: a food tour is a perfect way to get introduced to the city and Greek cuisine.
Plus, it’s tons of fun!
Here’s why you should add a Greek food tour to your Athens itinerary… and a few highlights from the Athens food tour that we loved!
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Why Taking an Athens Food Tour is a Great Idea
To get acquainted with the city.
Athens is a large and deeply interesting city, but it’s not necessarily the easiest one to wrap your head around.
Sure, everyone who visits knows that they’re going to see the Acropolis… but beyond that, many visitors arrive without a clear idea of how they want to fill their days, or where to find the most interesting neighborhoods in Athens.
An Athens food tour is the perfect solution!
More engaging than a standard walking tour, a food tour will help you orient yourself in Athens and get acquainted with exploring the city on foot, while also showing you interesting spots that you may not have found on your own.
To learn what to order in Athens.
Here’s the thing about landing in a new country, especially one that uses a different alphabet: even if you know that the food is supposed to be amazing, you may not know what to order!
A food tour solves that problem fast!
On a food tour, you’ll learn the names of and how to order all your new favorite foods (which, in a well-designed tour like the one we enjoyed, will generally be some of the most iconic to the city), plus tips about regional differences in preparing and naming foods.
For example, did you know that ordering souvlaki means something different in Athens than in the rest of Greece?
You’ll also have the chance to try a wide variety of foods in small(ish) portion sizes.
The small portions make it easy to convince yourself to try new foods, even those outside your comfort zone, as you won’t have to commit time or money to order an entire portion at a restaurant when you‘re not sure if you’ll like the dish.
To fill up on delicious Greek food.
Spanakopita. Greek coffee. Loukoumades. Gyros. Greek salad. Yogurt with honey. Wine. Olive oil. Several dishes topped with feta.
Those are just a few of the incredibly tasty things to eat in Athens that we sampled on our food tour, and we adored each and every bite of it!
On our several-hour-long tour, we tried over a dozen new-to-us foods, and every last one of them was completely delightful.
We took a morning food tour through Athens, and the food from the tour easily replaced both breakfast and lunch for us!
We were full for hours afterward, and it was so worth it.
Highlights From Our Food Tour in Athens
Chowing down on spanakopita.
Greece’s famous spinach pie may seem like an obvious choice for the first stop on an Athens food tour–it is often eaten as a breakfast food, after all–but as we had never tried it, we were all for it (and the cheese pie we tried at the same stop was amazing as well).
We quickly fell in love with the flaky crust and spinach-plus-feta filling.
So much in love, in fact, that we had spanakopita for breakfast several more times during our visit to Greece!
We’ve tried spanakopita outside of Greece several times since, trying to recapture the magic–and while we’ve had some tasty pies, none of them match the authentic Greek dish served in Athens.
Trying our first loukoumades.
Our first remarks when tasting loukoumades (Greek doughnuts covered in honey)?
“These taste like sopapillas!”.
The dishes aren’t exactly the same, of course–the texture, in particular, is a bit different between the two–but both desserts are incredibly delicious.
We always find it so interesting when cultures located across the world from each other end up creating similar dishes–and with an unstoppable combination like fried bread and honey, is it any surprise that similar inventions have popped up around the world?
Watching our friend Ashley try her first-ever gyro.
We took our food tour in Athens with our friend Ashley, who met us in Greece for her first-ever trip outside the USA–and watching her taste her first gyro was priceless!
She enjoyed just about everything on our Athens food tour, but the fresh pork gyro we ended the tour with?
That one got talked about for the rest of our time in Greece, and we definitely hunted down a few more gyros during her trip based on how much she enjoyed the first one.
And, on a practical note, ending our food tour through Athens with a hearty gyro was a great way to ensure we had absolutely no need to eat lunch after–in fact, we could barely finish our gyros!
Four words: Greek yogurt with honey.
I actually first fell in love with the joys of creamy Greek yogurt topped with delicious honey on our honeymoon in the Bahamas–but I completely forgot about it until we touched down in Athens years later!
This dessert. Oh, this dessert. I don’t know if I’ve ever eaten a single dish in my life with quite as much delight as I devoured the cup of Greek yogurt with honey that I had on our Athens food tour, and I definitely spent the rest of our time in Greece treating myself to Greek yogurt with honey as frequently as possible.
(Greek yogurt with honey is also one of my favorite and most consistent desserts to enjoy at home now–and while it’s not quite as sublime outside of Greece, it’s pretty close… and I smile and think of traveling Greece almost every time I have a bowl).
Devouring a delicious Greek salad with a glass of wine.
Greek salad made fresh with ingredients we picked up while walking through the fruit and vegetable market on our Athens food tour–what could be tastier than that?
Not much, especially once you add in that we picked which Greek olive oil to use to make the salad with from a taste test and that we accompanied the whole shebang with generous pours of local wine.
Chatting with our amazing tour guide, Dorela.
A good guide can really make or break a tour experience–and our guide on our Athens food tour, Dorela, was phenomenal.
She was personable, happy to chat with us and answer our endless questions about Greek food and Athens, incredibly knowledgeable about the food and the city, and also loved to travel.
In other words, she automatically has something in common with the travel-lovers who are likely to book an Athens food tour!
Exploring the Athens Central Market.
The Athens Central Market, or Public Market, or in Greek, Demotiki Agora, is one of the best places to visit in Athens!
With a location near Monastiraki Square in the heart of the city, most travelers spending a couple of days in Athens or more end up there at some point… but we learned so much more about the market by visiting with Dorela!
From spending time in rooms we probably would have missed to chatting with the owners of various stalls, we explored everything from (very) fresh seafood to butcher stalls to fruits and vegetables during our food tour of Athens!
More Things to Eat in Athens, Greece
Without giving away too many of the stops of our food tour, here are a few more of the top things to eat in Athens (some of which we enjoyed on the tour, and some on our own).
Moussaka
Also known colloquially as Greek lasagna (outside of Greece, anyway!), moussaka is an eggplant, potato, and meat (traditionally made with beef or lamb) casserole, all topped with a rich bechamel sauce.
It’s absolutely delicious and one of the most traditional Greek foods that is a must-eat in Athens!
Tzatziki
This traditional Greek yogurt sauce traditionally includes cucumber, olive oil, salt, and herbs… and it’s a wonderful addition to just about any Greek food.
Baklava
Baklava is an important dessert in many cultures, with the rivalry between Greek and Turkish baklava arguably being the most famous.
Regional variations (and claims of origin) aside, I’ve never found a baklava variety I didn’t enjoy… which in Greece, traditionally means walnuts tucked between the thin layers of pastry and cinnamon included in the syrup.
Dolmades
Imagine a rice and herb casserole, sometimes including meat or vegetables, that is wrapped up in a vine leaf like a burrito… and you have dolmades.
Greek Coffee
This extremely strong coffee brewed directly in a cup is a bit of an acquired taste (or texture–it’s a bit gritty, and you need to be careful not to sip the grounds on the bottom cup).
Simply watching it be prepared is a cultural experience worth having when exploring Greek food, though!
Souvlaki
It wouldn’t be a trip to Greece without plenty of grilled meat! Souvlaki is served on skewers in Athens, and it is delicious.
Chicken and pork are common, but lamb is also traditional.
Greek Salad (Horiatiki)
Traditional Greek salad is one of my favorite foods in the world and one of the top things to eat in Athens!
The salad traditionally features cucumber, tomato, onion, a hefty block of feta, olive oil, and Greek olives.
Some variations include additions like bell pepper or capers, and the simplest versions par it down to cucumbers, tomatoes, and feta.
The one thing a Greek salad absolutely does not include in Greece? Lettuce/leafy greens.
Book your Athens food tour today!
Want to book the same Athens food tour that we loved so much? You can!
This is the tour we loved. As you can see, it involves more stops than the ones we’ve outlined in this post, but we don’t want to spoil the whole tour for you!
Suffice it to say that you’ll finish the tour incredibly full and, if you’re a newcomer to the city, far more knowledgeable about both Greek food and Athens as a city than when you started.
Keep in mind that this Athens food tour does sell out sometimes, especially in the summer, so book at least a few days ahead of time if you can!
Alternatively, if you love the idea of learning about traditional Greek food in Athens but would prefer to get your hands dirty, so to speak, and make some food yourself, an Athens cooking class is also an excellent choice.
This one gets rave reviews and includes a view of the Acropolis!
Book the Athens food tour we loved today!
Prefer to pick up a new skill along with enjoying new food? Book your Athens cooking class today!
Read More About Visiting Greece (and Beyond)
Excited to eat your way through Athens… and to explore more of southern Europe?
You can check out all of our Greece blog posts here, or read these guides:
- The Perfect 2 Days in Athens Itinerary (First-Time Visitors’ Guide!)
- The Ultimate Europe Bucket List: 75 Fun Things to Do in Europe
- The Perfect 2 Week Spain and Portugal Itinerary (+ Essential Tips!)
- How to Spend 3 Spectacular Days in Santorini (Itinerary + Travel Guide)
- 21 Epic Hidden Gems in Europe: Secret Spots + Offbeat Highlights
About Kate Storm