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FLAVORS OF SYROS

Discovering the food and drink of Syros is like taking journey through time, with all of the history and incredible contrasts of the island reflected in the flavours and aromas we can enjoy today.

It was the settlers from Chios who found refuge in Syros during the 1821 Greek War of Independence who first introduced loukoumia (Turkish delight) to the locals, just as the Greek refugees from Smyrna brought with them spices and other delicacies that had become part of their cuisine through trade with the Orient.

The contrast couldn’t have been greater with the humble diet of the locals, based around simple, seasonal produce, and with other poorer migrants who also settled in Syros, bringing with them their own recipes.

Over time, a unique cuisine emerged, blending refined tastes and delicate aromas with the wholesome Mediterranean flavours of seasonal fruit and vegetables, as well as the meat and dairy products of local farmers.

Later communities added their touches, such as the Capuchin monks who introduced prickly pears, and most of the food you’ll enjoy today is still produced by local farmers. But the main ingredient of the food & drink of Syros is still the generosity and passion (meraki, as it’s called in Greek) of the locals, who have preserved age-old recipes and who enjoy nothing more than sharing them with you.

Highlight local products

  • Loukoumia: Turkish delight, with flavors including rosewater, mastic, bergamot, rose-sugar, clementine, almond, pistachio, walnut and coconut and always generously dusted with icing sugar. A popular gift for people returning from Syros
  • Halvadipota: Delicious and gooey nougat, filled with almonds and sandwiched between wafers. Another taste originating from Asia Minor and brought from migrants from Chios.
  • Local sausages: Made with pork and fennel and sometimes ‘spiced’ with garlic (skordoloukanika).
  • Louza: Pork fillet, cured in sea salt and marinated in red wine and a mix of spices (black pepper, allspice, cloves and cinnamon) before being air dried and served thinly sliced
  • Cheeses: Including PDO San Michali (hard, yellow), sweet graviera (matured for three months), kopanisti (soft and spicy) and myzithra (soft and white).
  • Pastelaries: Dried figs with walnuts, sesame seeds and cinnamon, baked for a short time and eaten as a snack

Other local products include capers, fennel, sundried tomatoes, crushed olives, herbs, honey, spoon sweet preserves and marmalades.

More about the traditional products of Syros

Local dishes

As well as all the Greek classics, there are many local dishes that will be highlights of your stay:

  • Kaparosalata (caper salad) & maidanosalata (parsley salad) which are dips served as appetizers
  • Melomenes melitzanes: “Honeyed” eggplant whose sweetness comes from a slow-cooked tomato sauce
  • Kokkinista karavola: Snails in a rich tomato sauce with sage.
  • Lahanodolmades: Cabbage leaves stuffed with minced pork filling, sweetened with raisins
  • Marathopita (fennel pie)
  • Meletinia (sweet cheese pies, dusted with cinnamon)
  • Meat dishes:
    • Sisira (slow-cooked pork)
    • Slow-cooked meat with quince
    • Kokkinisto flingouni (liver and entrails in red sauce)
    • Soutzoukakia (meatballs in red sauce spiced with cumin and oregano)
  • Seafood:
    • Fresh fish with dried capers
    • Aetopita (fish and vegetable pie)
    • Atherinopita (small fish, dusted with flour, mint and parsley and fried, served with chopped tomato and either onions or egg)
    • Octopus balls

Local wine

As well as enjoying local wine with your meal, you can learn more about wine production in Syros by visiting a vineyard. There are a handful of wineries that offer wine tasting and vineyard tours. You’ll be introduced to Cycladic grape varieties (such as Monemvasia, Mandilaria and Fokiano as well as Serifiotiko which – despite being named after the neighbouring island of Serifos – is native to Syros and responsible for most of the local wine). If you visit a vineyard in the hilly Ano Meria region in the north, you will see the neat vine terraces that have been used for centuries.

More about wine tasting in Syros

Wineries offering wine tasting & vineyard tours:

* Including distance from Ermoupoli

Other drinks

If you want to learn about the spirits of Syros, the Makryniotis Distillery in Vari is a micro-distillery that offers tasting experiences. As well as ouzo and tsipouro (made with grape pomace from grapes collected from Cycladic wineries), it produces aged tsipouro (stored in oak barrels for at least a year) and Plantae (double-distilled tsipouro with local herbs and spices), as well as fresh fig spirit and mastiha liqueur (made with mastiha from Chios). Finally, Syra Beer is a micro-brewery in Azolimnos that makes a variety of hand-crafted beers (lagers, ales and weisses).