Gluten-free Greece: tavernas, Greek dishes and groceries for celiacs

Eating out in Greece

Let's start with how eating out works in Greece, because it is not quite like at home. There is the restaurant (estiatorio), and there is the taverna or other places where you eat meze.

In a restaurant, the menu has the usual starters, mains and desserts. But in tavernas or mezedopoleio, you order dishes to share. I loved this culture of sharing dishes in the middle of the table, and I mostly went to this kind of place. So that is the food I will mostly talk about.

Gluten-free dishes

Here is a short list of gluten-free Greek specialties, with a description when the dish is less well known. Feel free to add more in the comments: in two weeks, I did not have time to try everything!

• Greek salad,
• Imam bayildi (eggplant slow-cooked with tomatoes and herbs),
• Kebab! In Greece, kebab means grilled meat on a skewer, nothing to do with the sandwich,
• Grilled meat in general, very common in tavernas, like souvlaki (check that it does not come in a pita),
• Tzatziki,
• Vine leaves stuffed with rice (dolmades), and peppers or tomatoes stuffed with rice (gemista),
• Fish and seafood, as long as they are not fried,
• Fava, a yellow split pea purée,
• Fasolada, a soup of giant white beans,
• ...

Desserts

The best-known desserts, like baklava, contain gluten. Greeks do not eat much dessert, but they love a little sweet treat at the end of a meal. Restaurants often offer one, and unfortunately they are rarely gluten-free.

But all is not lost! Greek sweets look like Middle Eastern pastries, and some are gluten-free, like these donut-shaped Turkish delights, Παραδοσιακός ροζιες from Arachova, or candied zucchini (delicious!).

Drinks

Greek drinks are mostly gluten-free:

• ouzo, an anise-flavored spirit,
• frappé, iced coffee whipped with sugar,
• Greek wine, like retsina, flavored with pine resin.

Local beers are common, of varying quality, and always contain gluten. I found no gluten-free beer in bars or supermarkets.

Eating gluten-free in restaurants

In my experience, waiters understand gluten-free well (χωρίς γλουτένη, pronounced choris glouteni). Almost every time, people spoke English and could list the dishes without flour, which is not always the case in France!

You can show this to the waiter:

Έχω κοιλιοκάκη. Δεν μπορώ να φάω γλουτένη.

I have celiac disease. I cannot eat gluten.

Greeks eat a phenomenal amount of bread in restaurants, and many dishes are made to be eaten with it. My big mistake was forgetting to buy some at the start. If you have gluten-free bread with you, enjoy the dips like tzatziki, and the delicious sauces at the bottom of the plates.

I do not claim to be a travel guide, but I came across a few places that were particularly careful about gluten-free food:

• A little Taste of Home in Athens, now at Astiggos 8, in Psyri. No special gluten-free dishes, but it was simply delicious, and the manager gave us very good advice about the dishes.
• Vakhos taverna in Delphi (Apollonos 31). The menu lists allergens. We went for a drink once, then for dinner, and each time we got a little something extra. Not to mention the view over the Gulf of Corinth.
• To Tsardaki, by Lake Plastira. Going there was a mistake at first: I thought I could swim in the lake. We arrived at 2:30 pm, starving, in the rain, with no beach... But what a find! The manager is the founder's granddaughter, and the mother of a celiac boy. She gave me lots of advice about gluten-free dishes and grocery shopping. And the homemade food was really delicious.

Since my trip, several 100% gluten-free places have opened in Athens. I have not tried them, but celiacs rate them highly:

• Greek Stories (Makrygianni, at the foot of the Acropolis): an entirely gluten-free Greek restaurant.
• Nudie Foodie (Psyri): a 100% gluten-free restaurant, with delivery too.
• Marinos Kosmas Gluten Free Pastry & Bakery Project (Mesogeion Avenue 78A): a certified 100% gluten-free pastry shop.

Good to know

• Restaurants always serve water. Usually a jug; bottled water is almost always charged, 0.50 to 2 euros.
• Bread is charged too, often per person, and brought automatically. If you do not want it, say so.

Grocery shopping

Eating out in Greece is very cheap, but supermarket prices are no lower than in France. And hotels are much easier to find inland than private rooms, so we ate out a lot. Still, we cooked a few times and tried gluten-free shopping in several towns.

Buying gluten-free food

I found gluten-free bread in most supermarkets, usually with little choice. Barilla gluten-free pasta is easy to find, on the regular pasta shelf.

Cookies, cereals and flours are harder to find: I found them in large supermarkets. The manager of To Tsardaki suggested organic shops, but I did not have time. Overall, it is a bit like France.

For instance, Parea cookies with cinnamon or almonds are really good. It is a Greek brand, so give them a try.

In supermarkets, gluten-free products sit with regular products, so they are sometimes hard to spot. But the crossed-out wheat symbol often helped me, like on this shelf:

Picnic ideas

For picnic lovers, Greek supermarkets can be a little disappointing. Vacuum-packed ham and cured meats are... not great. Sandwich cheeses are about the same. With the difficulty of finding gluten-free bread outside big towns and the low price of a Greek salad in a taverna (5 to 7 euros), picnics are not really worth it.

But we made good finds in the canned food aisle: lots of canned fish, vine leaves, beans and other Greek specialties. A bit pricey, but a way to vary your meals and still eat local food.

For more general advice, read my gluten-free travel tips. A year later, we went to Croatia: here is my gluten-free Croatia guide. And for another sunny destination, see my gluten-free Seville guide.