The food of Corfu

Whatever you plan to do on your Villa holiday in Corfu, one thing is for sure – food will play a very large part in your holiday experience. Food can evoke many memories and serve as a reminder of how you enjoyed your time on the island. That’s the beauty of villa holidays: you’re free to come and go as you please and eat as and when you want to. You’re not tied by specific meal times as you would be with hotel accommodation. When you book your Corfu villa holiday you’ll be able to eat out at the wide variety of bars and tavernas whenever the mood takes you, or pick up a few local specialities and cook them at leisure when you’re back by the side of the pool. That sounds like the perfect holiday to us: sand, sun, plenty of good food and oodles of the local white wine Retsina. What’s not to like?

There are many native culinary dishes available in Corfu, as well as the more generic sort of foods we now tend to associate with Greek cuisine, like souvlákia, lemon and herb grilled kebabs, melitzanososaláta, grilled aubergines and herbs, choriátikí salaáta, or Greek salad to you and me, mousaká, an aubergine and potato bake, Keftédes, meat patties with herbs, taramosaláta, pureed salted mullet roe and kléftiko, which is slow-baked goat or lamb. All of these traditional dishes are delicious. Even when you’re back in damp old England, one taste of any of these dishes will have the memories flooding back.

As you would expect on any island, fish is in abundance. Corfu is no exception and is able to boast some of the finest seafood on any of the Ionian Islands. You can choose from oysters (streídia), sea urchins (achinoí), lobster ( astakós), white bait ( marídes), crab (kávouras), sardines (sardélles) and of course glorious sea bass( lavráki). These are only a few of the many fish dishes on offer. If you fancy something else, or perhaps something a little more exotic, then all you need to do is ask, and the taverna will either rustle you up something special or tell you where you might be able to find the dish of your dreams.

Corfu also has its own speciality dishes that are rarely found on any of the other Ionian Islands. Pasta features quite heavily in the island’s food, thanks in the main to the strong influence brought to the Corfu cuisine following the Venetian occupation. Pastítsio is one of these specialities: it’s a pie made with layers of meat, macaroni and tomatoes, covered with a béchamel sauce and smothered in grated cheese. If you’ve never tried this before, then you really should as it’s absolutely delicious. You’ll also be able to find the island’s own version of Sofrito, stew made of meat and tomatoes with an infusion of olive oil and wine vinegar, and glyká, which is a dish made of fruits preserved in a heavy honey-based syrup, served with pistachio nuts, morello cherries and oranges on sweet bread .

The only thing we would recommend is that you try everything at least once. Why miss out on some of the most wonderful tastes of the Mediterranean? You can always get your fish, chips and burgers when you return back home.