Small Cretan pies, folded open or closed, filled with fresh myzithra or with wild greens fried in olive oil. The sweet cheese ones get honey and cinnamon, the savoury ones get nothing but their own oil.
Where to eat it: 1 restaurant across 1 city.
Kalitsounia are the everyday pie of Crete, and the shape changes as you cross the island. Around Heraklion they are usually small and open-topped, the pastry pinched into a star and the myzithra left exposed so it browns in the oven. In the west they are more often closed and fried. The pies belong to the calendar as much as to the kitchen: sweet cheese versions appear at Easter, greens versions through Lent and winter, when horta are at their best. Bakeries across Heraklion sell them all year now, and the Agora on 1866 Street is where most households still buy the myzithra to make them at home.
Common allergens: Gluten, Dairy
Tip from the editors. Fresh myzithra is wet. If yours weeps, drain it in a sieve for an hour or the pastry base will go soggy.
Savoidakis sells kalitsounia right across Heraklion, and a warm bag of the Cretan cheese pies is the best two euros you can spend near the Agora.
Try: Kalitsounia
Order: Kalitsounia, eaten warm out of the paper bag
Tip: The Dikaiosinis branch is the handiest for the Agora, and the pies come out through the morning.
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