Ribbons of thin dough wrapped around sour myzithra and coiled like a turban, fried in olive oil and finished with honey and walnuts. The name comes from the sariki, the fringed headscarf Cretan men wear.
Where to eat it: 1 restaurant across 1 city.
Sarikopites belong to the same family as kalitsounia but are shaped differently: the filled dough is rolled into a long rope, then coiled flat so the finished pie looks like a wound headscarf. That headscarf, the sariki, is still worn in Cretan villages and gave the pie its name. Sour myzithra is the traditional filling, sharper than the fresh cheese used in sweet kalitsounia, which is why the honey at the end is not optional. They are fried rather than baked, which makes them a treat rather than an everyday pie, and they turn up on Heraklion dessert menus more often than at breakfast.
Common allergens: Gluten, Dairy
Tip from the editors. Keep the oil at a steady medium heat. Too hot and the coil browns before the dough at the centre has cooked.
Merastri keeps a serious Cretan wine list behind its wood oven in Heraklion, and the reds it pours are built to stand up to three-hour roast lamb.
Signature pour: A Liatiko red with the wood-oven lamb
Wine focus: Cretan list built around the wood oven
Food: Full Cretan menu
Order: A Liatiko red alongside the wood-oven lamb
Tip: The Cretan list is the reason to linger. Ask what is open by the glass before committing to a bottle.
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