…Meeting feta on its own turf is a revelation …
At Ayoli, a hip restaurant on the Thessaloniki waterfront, seafood is served raw or just barely cooked. A sampling dinner included sea bass tartare, tuna carpaccio, raw clams in their shells, steamed prawns, butterflied sardines in garlicky olive oil, and a swordfish steak as soft and sweet as butter. With it I drank Boutari Santorini, a white wine from the picture-perfect island in the Agean. It is dry, minerally and citrusy and pairs fantastically with seafood.
These days there are many outstanding Greek wines. There's logic to this. Greece, after all, has the oldest wine culture in the world. Mount Olympus, where Dionysus, god of wine and pleasure, reputedly cavorted, is not far from Thessaloniki. Fast forward a few thousand years to a generation of vintners trained in France, add some shiny new EU-funded wineries, and ancient wines are getting a new lease on life. There are now 126 wine regions in Greece that have PDO designations.
Greek food doesn't have to be fancy to be good. Exploring Thessaloniki on foot, I could have existed entirely on paradosiakis pites, Thessaloniki's traditional filo pies, which come with a variety of fillings including cheese, spinach, leeks and beef, bougatsa, (breakfast pastries filled with custard) or the enormous gyros for which Thessaloniki is famous. Street foods are inexpensive, seriously delicious, and available all over.
Any visit to Thessaloniki should include a side trip to Halkidiki, about an hour and half from the city. The region is made up of three peninsulas that jut out into the Mediterranean. The scenery is gorgeous, with sheltered bays, sandy beaches and forested hillsides dotted with archaeological sites. At Athos, a seaside taverna with a view of Mount Athos, a little over ten Euro purchased a spectacular lunch featuring local seafood and produce from nearby farms. Grilled octopus, crispy fried calamari, sweet baby mussels in a lemony sauce scented with herbs, wild greens, taramosalata, creamy gigantes beans in a