Foods You Must Eat in Crete Greece!
- Clyde
- Nov 5, 2025
- 4 min read
Updated: Jan 10
Mediterranean Diet, Cretan Gastronomy or Greek Food specialties?
All chapters from the same story: The Foods You Must Eat in Crete Greece!
Crete is the biggest of all Greek islands & the heart of Mediterranean gastronomy.
The super tasty & famously healthy food that you can find here, is a significant reason to visit the island - especially if you are a foodie or looking for a real gastronomy experience. The food standards are so high, that even an average cooked meal, for us locals, probably will taste like heaven to most of travellers.
There are two basic reasons that make food on Crete really tasty:
The climate
Crete is positioned geographically, very close to Africa, Asia & Europe (the south coast of the Chania prefecture is in a shorter distance to Libya (300kms.), than Athens.
The island has many microclimates (from snow covered mountains to dry sandy beaches), very warm summers & mild winters with lots of rain.
All these elements are creating a fertile terrain, ideal for growing vegetables, olive & fruit trees, almost of any kind, but also happy free range animals, like the Cretan goat.
If you add on top the fresh water springs, then you'll have the full picture.
THE ROOTS
Cretan gastronomy has very deep roots in time (more than 6.000 years) going back to the Minoans. The kingdom of the oldest civilization in Europe - and their unbeaten fleet of ships - were trading with other cities states & civilizations around the Mediterranean Sea their goods (olive oil, wine, honey, seeds, ceramics etc.).
At the same time they were importing goods like beer, spices, gold, silver, ivory etc.
The food influences from the trade, made them familiar with recipes unknown to them.
Cretan cuisine has a huge influence from this past. Arab, Ottoman or Latin food recipes that became known to Cretans during the years of the island occupation are still part of our every day's cooking tradition.
Below we'll present just three of the Best Foods Must Eat Crete Greece, carefully selected in order to understand the Cretan cooking philosophy.
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The list with Cretan foods can be extensive and sometimes recipes even vary from the West to East coast of the island. What is really magic is that with the amazing and hard to beat local ingredients, you may create your own tasty recipes.
Foods You Must Eat in Crete Greece
given suggested restaurants & taverns, that we visit & eat ourselves
Maybe the most iconic recipe on the island and the most easy to make, if you are a rookie in Cretan cuisine.
You can find Ntakos almost in all Crete's taverns & restaurants very often in different variations. The best season to have it is from the beginning of July to late September, where tomatoes are really juicy & tasty.
The basic ingredients are six but the most important are: the Summer juicy red Cretan tomatoes, lots of olive oil, the local soft cheese (mizithra) & crispy barley rusks (not very soft croutons).
For maximum taste you'll need to add on top sea salt & mountain oregano.
This is one of the very very few recipes in the Cretan cuisine that we don't use olive oil in order to cook it. The only ingredients that we'll need, are: the meat cut in pieces, red wine, salt, pepper & daphne leaves.
The whole cooking process is really simple. We slow cook the meat for 5-6 hours, in it's own fat & wine. It'll be ready, when it melts in our mouth.
The goat meat variation is tastier & healthier than the lamb, as most of the goats are free range in Crete. That means that goats have less fat & eat better quality food direct from nature. You'll find the original goat meat recipe in just a few places.
The wild greens have very deep roots in the Cretan cooking tradition as the local population realized how good they are for a healthy life but also affordable.
They grow naturally everywhere and the only tricky part is for you to be able to recognize them. There are dozens of different types of wild greens, grown in different seasons, altitudes, terrains & tastes (from bitter to semi-sweet and everything between).
The cooking is in total simplicity: boil them in hot water for a few minutes (remember to clean them from any sand or mud beforehand. You might need to remove the root part as well).
Drain the greens and top with lots of olive oil & fresh lemon juice in a deep dish.
The best alternative by far to the Greek salad, when tomatoes are not tasty during the winter months, and the ultimate side dish for fish - sea food.
You may find wild greens in traditional pies and meat recipes as well.
Always have in mind that Cretan cuisine's basic ingredient is not the meat but the Olive Oil the vegetables, the wild greens - herbs & the diary products .
In case you would like to taste original Cretan meat, then you better order goat, lamb or rabbit. Pork and beef meat is imported.
With all the above in mind and a great feeling of respect to the Cretan Nature, we created in 2023 our Eat & Crete Food Tour [non-touristy] in Chania's White Mountains.
Not only is it delicious and informative but also a cultural immersion that you would never have if simply hanging out in downtown Chania on a touristy food tour.
We, at Bonnie and Clyde Urban Tours, prefer to stay out of the easy touristy path & business style of copying a downtown Chania food tour that ends up being the same with all the others.
The goal for us is to present the authentic part of Crete that we are interested in, always with the thought to leave behind the smallest possible foot-print on our beautiful planet Earth.
That's a great article about food.
Keep up the good work.
Thank you for sharing, with all the places as well. We are waiting for the 2nd part