Greek Dishes to Learn in Athens

The dishes to try in Athens are the ones Greeks cook at home: moussaka, spanakopita, gemista, dolmades, tzatziki and horiatiki salad, with souvlaki and gyros on the street and loukoumades for something sweet. They are also, almost exactly, what Athens cooking classes teach, which makes a class early in a trip a useful one: you learn what to order, and you learn why the version in one taverna is better than the next.

The dishes

Moussaka. Layers of aubergine (and often potato), minced meat in a tomato sauce with cinnamon, and a thick bechamel, baked. The best-known Greek dish abroad and a favourite of the classes, because it uses every technique at once.

Spanakopita. Spinach and feta, often with spring onion, dill and other greens, wrapped in phyllo and baked. Most classes make a pie of some kind; one makes the phyllo itself by hand.

Dolmades (dolmadakia). Vine leaves rolled around rice and herbs, sometimes with minced meat, simmered with lemon. Fiddly at first and very satisfying.

Gemista. Tomatoes and peppers hollowed out, stuffed with rice, herbs and the tomato flesh, and baked in olive oil. A summer dish, at its best when tomatoes are.

Tzatziki. Strained yoghurt with grated cucumber, garlic and olive oil. Every class makes it; the trick is squeezing the cucumber dry.

Horiatiki. The “village salad”: tomato, cucumber, onion, olives, oregano and a slab of feta, with no lettuce. On Crete it becomes dakos, the same topping on a barley rusk soaked in olive oil.

Imam baildi. Aubergines roasted and topped with onion and tomato, an Ottoman-era dish shared with Turkish cooking.

Souvlaki and gyros. Grilled skewers, and meat cooked on a vertical spit and shaved into a pita with tomato, onion and tzatziki. Greece’s street food, and the subject of its own gyros cooking class.

Sweets. Loukoumades (small fried dough balls with honey and cinnamon), galatopita (milk pie) and portokalopita (a soft orange cake made with phyllo and cinnamon) turn up on class menus.

Which class teaches what

Menus checked October 2026; most change with the season.

A family kitchen in Kerameikos

If you want home cooking rather than restaurant classics, the Kerameikos stone-house class is the one. It is run by Mama’s Roots in a 1920s stone house in Kerameikos and cooks six dishes from the family’s Cretan and Peloponnese recipes: gemista, crunchy spinach and cheese rolls, dakos, kagiana (Greek scrambled eggs with tomato and feta), tzatziki and loukoumades. On Tuesdays the group spends about 15 minutes at the farmers’ market held outside. Wine from local producers comes with the meal, and the recipes are sent to you afterwards.

It costs from $109 per person, rated 5.0 from 206 reviews (checked October 2026), and takes about three and a half hours.

Eating them out

Once you can name the dishes, ordering in a taverna gets easier. Order several mezedes, small plates, for the table rather than one main each; that is how Greeks eat. Ask what is cooked that day: the baked dishes in the trays at the counter of a mageireio are often the best food in the street. The Greek food etiquette guide covers meal times, tipping and what to expect at the table, and the market guide where the ingredients come from.

Written 25 October 2026. Dish descriptions are standard Greek cookery. Class menus, timings, prices and ratings come from the GetYourGuide listings, read 25 October 2026, and change over time.