A thin pan-fried pie, dough rolled around fresh myzithra and flattened out again, cooked dry on a hot surface and served with thyme honey. It should be soft, not crisp, and eaten within minutes of leaving the pan.
Where to eat it: 1 restaurant across 1 city.
The pie takes its name from Sfakia, the mountain region of southwest Crete, but it travelled across the island and now appears on taverna menus everywhere, Heraklion included. The dough is made with raki or wine and no fat, wrapped around a ball of fresh myzithra, then rolled flat again so the cheese spreads to the edges. It cooks on a dry pan in a couple of minutes a side. The honey goes on at the table, never in the kitchen, and thyme honey from the Cretan mountains is the traditional choice. Erganos in Heraklion serves them small, several to a plate, as a starter rather than a dessert.
Common allergens: Gluten, Dairy
Tip from the editors. Roll from the centre outwards and stop the moment the cheese shows through. A torn pie leaks and burns.
Erganos sits uphill from the Heraklion museums beside Kazantzakis park, a 1986 taverna that most visitors walk past on their way somewhere else.
Why locals love it: A 1986 taverna beside Kazantzakis park that trades almost entirely on locals and word of mouth rather than passing trade.
Tip: Ask what the kitchen cooked that morning rather than reading the whole menu top to bottom.
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