Athens Food Tours
Athens eats on the street and in the market: souvlaki and gyros wrapped to go, koulouri sesame rings from the cart, the roaring Varvakios central market, and the meze tables of Psyrri and Koukaki washed down with ouzo and tsipouro. This is our Athens food hub. Below are the top-rated food experiences, then our cooking and wine pages.
Top-rated food experiences in Athens
Meze and evening tastings
Why Athens for food? Because under the ancient sights is a lively, affordable food city — the biggest food market in Greece, a souvlaki on every corner, and a meze-and-ouzo culture that runs late.
Formats: food tours of the Varvakios market, Psyrri and the central bazaar with tastings; evening meze-and-ouzo crawls; cooking classes and wine tastings (see their own pages).
What to eat: souvlaki and gyros, koulouri, bougatsa, loukoumades, grilled octopus, saganaki, the meze table, and Greek coffee or a shot of tsipouro.
The market and the streets
The heart of Athens eating is the Varvakios Agora, the central market, a covered hall of meat and fish flanked by streets of spice, cheese, olive and herb sellers — most food tours start here. Around it, Psyrri, Monastiraki and the arcades hide the old souvlaki grills, the koulouri carts, and the mageiria, the home-style cook shops where the day’s stews sit in trays. It is a greedy, unglossy walk through a working city.
The dishes
Souvlaki and gyros — skewered or shaved meat wrapped in pita with tomato, onion and tzatziki — are the fast food, and Athens argues endlessly about who does them best. Beyond them: bougatsa, custard or cheese in filo; grilled octopus and saganaki fried cheese from the meze table; loukoumades, honey-soaked doughnuts; and the vegetable dishes, the ladera, that are the everyday Greek kitchen. Wash it down with ouzo or tsipouro, poured with small plates.
How to do it
Food tours run three to four hours, market to meze, with a dozen tastings and drinks, in small groups; a tour on the first day maps the city’s food. To cook the classics, see our Athens cooking classes; to taste the wines and visit Nemea, our Athens wine tastings and Peloponnese day trips.
Frequently asked questions
What is the one thing to eat in Athens?
A proper souvlaki, and a plate from the meze table — grilled octopus or saganaki — with ouzo. The Varvakios market is the place to understand the city’s food.
Is Athens good for a food tour?
Very; the central market, the souvlaki culture and the meze bars make it one of the best-value food-tour cities in the Mediterranean.
What is tsipouro?
A strong Greek grape spirit, like a rustic ouzo without (or with less) anise, drunk with meze; a tsipouradiko is a bar built around it.
How we choose
We list only experiences with a strong rating over a meaningful number of reviews and free cancellation where available, and we favour small-group and family-run hosts. FindEatLocal earns a commission when you book through GetYourGuide or Viator links on this page; it doesn’t change the price you pay. More about how we choose.