The cream skimmed off goat and sheep milk, cooked slowly with a little flour until it splits into a thick white paste and a clear golden butter. Both halves get used, and both are richer than anything else on the table.
Where to eat it: 1 restaurant across 1 city.
Staka is dairy economics turned into a delicacy. Cretan shepherds skimmed the cream off milk left to stand, then cooked it down with flour over a low fire. The paste that forms is staka; the butter that separates out is stakovoutyro, and it goes into gamopilafo, into pastries, and over potatoes. Nothing is wasted. It is a mountain product, made where flocks are, and it travels badly, which is why it stays a Cretan speciality rather than a Greek one. Heraklion kitchens use it as a finishing fat: stirred into wedding rice, spooned over grilled pork fillet, or served plain with bread and a glass of raki.
Common allergens: Dairy
Tip from the editors. Sheep or goat milk gives the right texture. Cow cream will not split the same way and stays greasy rather than firm.
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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