Athens
Guided tour · 3 hours
Athens: Street Food Tasting Tour
Immerse yourself in Athenian cuisine, sample the best street food with beer or wine, explore Athens, and hang out where the locals do on this guided...
from€59Check dates
History
Bougatsa came to Crete with refugees from Asia Minor after 1922. Phyllosophies traces its own line to a bougatsa master from Hamidiye, a district of Smyrna, and dates its trade on Lions Square to 1922. Kirkor has worked the same square for close to a century. The Thessaloniki version of the pie sticks to semolina cream. Heraklion made a local variant by swapping in sweetened myzithra, the fresh whey cheese that Cretan dairies produce in quantity, which gives a tangier, less sugary pie. The ritual has not changed in a century: order at the counter, watch the pie cut into squares on the board, take it outside while it is still too hot to hold.
Book a food experience
Tours, tastings and classes from the cities on this page, bookable on GetYourGuide.
Heraklion
Guided tour · 7 hours
Knossos & Historical Heraklion City Tour with Old Market
Visit Knossos Palace, Crete’s most famous archaeological site, and explore Heraklion city. Enjoy a guided tour, free time, and a walk through the Old...
from€40Check dates
Thessaloniki
Guided tour · 4 hours
Thessaloniki: Food Tastings and Drinks Tour with a Chef
Delve into Greek cuisine and go on a walking tour of Thessaloniki with food tastings and drinks included. Taste local dishes such as koulouri, wander...
from€80Check dates
Common allergens: Gluten, Dairy
Make it at home
Ingredients
- 8 sheets of good phyllo pastry
- 1 litre whole milk
- 150g fine semolina
- 150g caster sugar
- 3 eggs
- 100g butter, melted
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- Icing sugar and ground cinnamon, to finish
Method
- Heat the milk with the sugar until it steams, then rain in the semolina while whisking hard.
- Cook for five minutes until thick, take off the heat, and beat in the eggs one at a time followed by the vanilla.
- Brush a 30cm baking tin with butter and lay in four phyllo sheets, buttering each one.
- Pour in the semolina cream and level it, then top with the remaining four sheets, buttering as you go.
- Score the top layers into squares, bake at 180C for 35 to 40 minutes until deep gold.
- Rest ten minutes, then cut through and finish with icing sugar and cinnamon.
Tip from the editors. For the Heraklion version, replace the semolina cream with 700g sweetened fresh myzithra beaten with two eggs.
Where to eat bougatsa
Bougatsa in Heraklion
Kirkor ★ 4.7
Kirkor sells bougatsa on Lions Square in Heraklion for just a few euros, which makes its counter the cheapest good breakfast in the entire city.
OrderBougatsa with custard, cinnamon and icing sugar
TipA bougatsa and a Greek coffee is breakfast for under five euros, which is the cheapest sit-down in the old town.
Phyllosophies ★ 4.6
Phyllosophies keeps prices low on Lions Square in Heraklion, where a bougatsa or a hand-opened greens pie costs less than a coffee elsewhere.
OrderBougatsa with sweet myzithra, honey and walnuts
TipThe savoury chortopites and tyropites cost about the same as the sweet bougatsa and travel better in a bag.
More cities are in research. Want bougatsa covered somewhere specific? Tell us where you want to eat.