Rethymno

• •A ten minute walk out of the tourist streets
• •Around €5 to €10 a head
• •Cash only, and you may wait at busy times

Grill house · Corner of Kourmouli and Psychountaki, by the Municipal Garden

A plain neighbourhood grill house on a residential corner by the Municipal Garden, described by a long-standing Crete resident as the place locals eat, apart from the tourist stream in the old town. The trade-off is honest: the food is generous and very cheap, but service can be slow when it fills up and cards are not accepted.

Suggested: gyros, the grill

• •A working mageireio, not a restaurant
• •Around €10 to €15 a head
• •Reviewed far more by Greeks than by visitors

Mageireio · Fotaki 24, near the lighthouse

A small cooked-food kitchen on a lane near the lighthouse, serving the kind of tray food Greeks eat on an ordinary weekday. One reviewer put it plainly: not glamorous like the places close by, but the food is authentic and delicious.

Suggested: moussaka, dolmades, the aubergines

• •The menu changes daily with whatever came in
• •Out of the old town, where the residents are
• •Reviewed mostly by Greeks, not visitors

Home cooking, daily changing menu · Emmanouil Portaliou 19, ten minutes inland of the harbour

The name means little saucepan, and that is the format: dishes of the day, cooked in the morning, changing with whatever the kitchen was able to buy. It sits well inland of the harbour, and one Rethymno local recommended it precisely because it is not in the old town and only locals go.

Suggested: the dishes of the day

• •Maria cooks a set amount each morning and closes when it is gone
• •Around €7.50 a head
• •Lunch only, Monday to Saturday

Home cooking, lunch only · G. Papandreou 31

Maria cooks a fixed batch of food at the start of the day and stops when it runs out, which is the oldest sign there is that a place is feeding its neighbours rather than a season. Go early, or telephone ahead and they will keep your order back for you.

Suggested: whatever is in the pots that day

• •The oldest souvlaki counter in Rethymno, trading since 1978
• •Gyro around €3.50
• •Two or three tables: this is a counter, not a restaurant

Souvlaki counter, since 1978 · Arkadiou 70, Old Town

The oldest souvlaki counter in the city, in the same tiny arched doorway on Arkadiou since 1978, with a hand-painted board that looks every one of those years. Handmade gyro, homemade meatballs and chips cut on the day, mostly carried away rather than eaten in.

Suggested: gyros pita, the homemade meatballs, fresh cut chips

• •Full of students, in the heart of the old town
• •Live laiko music on Thursday, Friday and Saturday
• •The chocolate loukoumades at the end are on the house

Mezedopoleio · Plateia Titou Petychaki 15, Old Town

A big, tree-shaded courtyard mezedopoleio on the old town's main square, and one of the few places on that square where the crowd is mostly students and young Rethymniots rather than visitors. Greek press describes it as exactly that.

Suggested: snails bourbouristi, the Bakalogatos salad, the mezedes

• •Family run since 2006, opposite the Neratze minaret
• •Ten or more fresh Cretan dishes cooked daily
• •A raki and a small cake arrive free at the end

Rakadiko, family run since 2006 · Emmanouil Vernardou 7, opposite the Neratze minaret

A rakadiko directly across from the Neratze minaret, run by the same family since 2006, with ten or more Cretan dishes cooked fresh each day. The free raki and cake at the end of the meal comes up in review after review.

Suggested: snails, feta, sausage, the daily dishes

• •Phyllo stretched by hand in front of you, as it has been since 1958
• •Father and son work side by side
• •A workshop, not a restaurant: there is nowhere to sit

Phyllo and sweets workshop, since 1958 · Emmanouil Vernardou 30, down an old town alley

Not a place to eat so much as a place to watch. Giorgos Hatziparaskos, now in his nineties, still pulls phyllo by hand in a Venetian building down a Vernardou alley, with his son Paraskevas alongside him, and visitors are welcome to stand and watch it being made. Buy the baklava or the kataifi and take it with you, because there is no seating.

Suggested: baklava, kataifi, galaktoboureko

• •The oven dishes are set out for you to look at and choose
• •Under €40 for two, house wine €5 a litre
• •A raki and something sweet arrive free at the end

Mageirefta taverna · Machis Kritis 63, Misiria, about 4 km east of town

A large, long-established taverna on the old road east of town, where the day's oven dishes are laid out in trays and you choose by pointing. Crete residents have sent visitors here for a decade, describing it as a place that caters for locals and fills with Greek families, and it is worth the short drive out.

Suggested: whatever is in the trays, the house wine from the barrel

• •The same family has grilled on this square since 1948
• •Opens at seven in the evening
• •The tables are laid out across the village square itself

Village grill, family run since 1948 · Mesochoria square, Atsipopoulo village, about 4 km from town

The same family has run this grill on the square at Atsipopoulo since 1948. There is no dining room to speak of: the tables are set out across the paved square in front of the church, under string lights, and that is where the village eats.

Suggested: the souvlaki, the grill

• •No menu at all: say what you cannot eat and the food starts arriving
• •Manolis, his wife Eleni and their son Leonidas run it
• •Around €20 a head

No-menu mezedopoleio · Charalampou Liandri, Atsipopoulo village, about 4 km from town

There is no menu here. You tell Manolis what you do not eat, and he, his wife Eleni and their son Leonidas bring out whatever they cooked that day, course after course, to share. It is in the village of Atsipopoulo, about ten minutes west of town.

Suggested: whatever they bring you

• •No menus, and nothing from outside the village
• •About ten dishes, cooked that day, in small portions
• •In the same family since 1926, under the current owner's father's name

No-menu taverna · Armenoi village, about fifteen minutes south

A Greek writer put it best: at Alekos you will find no menus and no ingredients that are not local. The family has held the building since 1926, first as a kafeneio and village store, and Sifis Frangiadakis turned it into a taverna in 1993, keeping his father Alekos's name over the door. The vegetables and the dairy come from their own land, and you eat the ten or so things cooked that morning.

Suggested: snails, the dishes of the day, the house dairy

• •It began in 1995 as a single table in the family courtyard
• •Stifado with fifteen wild herbs, handmade pasta with Perama cheese
• •In winter it opens at weekends as a local gathering place

Village taverna · Maroulas village, about fifteen minutes southeast

The owner's own account of how it started is the best description of it: the people turned us into a shop. It began in 1995 as one table in the family courtyard in Maroulas, and word of mouth did the rest. Valantis took over the running of it in 2014, and the terrace looks out over the sea.

Suggested: wild greens pastries, stifado with fifteen herbs, handmade pasta with Perama cheese

• •The mother cooks, the son runs the floor
• •Home cooking from what the family raises
• •A quiet village road, with olive groves beyond

Village mezedopoleio · Prines village, about ten minutes west

A village house on the old Chania road at Prines, where the mother cooks and the son runs the front. The Greek phrase used for the food translates roughly as mum-style cooking, and the vegetables come off the family's own terraced plot up the hill.

Suggested: lamb in egg-lemon, rabbit with onions, wild greens, snails

• •The same family since 1967, and they have changed nothing
• •Cards on the tables, raki with meze
• •Greek cafe awards every year since 2020

Kafeneio, same family since 1967 · Moatsou street

This is the one that is least for you and most for them, which is exactly why it is here. The same family has run it since 1967, and the owner's description of the place is simply that they run it as they always did: let the regulars play their cards and drink their raki. It has won a Greek cafe award every year since 2020 and does not have a TripAdvisor listing at all.

Suggested: raki with the meze that comes with it, Greek coffee

• •A students' favourite on a quiet old town lane
• •Around €3 to €5 a head
• •Open until midnight, closed Sundays

Kafeneio · Tzane Bouniali 46, Old Town

A small kafeneio on a pedestrian lane in the old town, named after the ox-cart drawn on its signboard, and known as one of the student crowd's favourite spots. Tsikoudia with small plates, at about the price you would expect of a place that feeds students.

Suggested: tsikoudia with the small plates, dakos, apaki

• •Greek press calls it by far the best mageireio in the city
• •Around €5 to €10 a head
• •Run by a husband and wife together

Oinomageireio · Gerakari 120, behind the Town Hall

A small wine-and-cooking house on a plain street behind the Town Hall, run by Pagona and Kostis Kontogiannis, where the walls carry framed photographs of Cretan musicians and mantinada couplets written straight onto the plaster. Greek local press calls it, without hedging, by far the best mageireio in the city.

Suggested: the braised tripe, the thin cut fried potatoes