Long tube pasta layered with spiced beef ragu and a bechamel top, baked into a square slice, the Sunday-lunch plate at every Athens taverna with home cooking.

The story of Pastitsio

Pastitsio descends from the Venetian pasticcio, a baked pasta pie that reached the Ionian islands under Venetian rule, and it shares the Tselementes bechamel story with moussaka: the French-trained chef's 1920 cookbook dropped the pastry shell, put a bechamel top on the meat and pasta, and set the version every Greek kitchen now cooks. The thick hollow tube sold in Greece as pastitsio No. 2 is the pasta of choice; bucatini is the closest substitute abroad. Athens mageiria bake it in trays for the lunch crowd, and the slice with crisp bechamel top and tomato-cinnamon ragu is the canonical Athenian Sunday lunch order.

How to make Pastitsio

Serves: 6

Ingredients

Method

  1. Cook pasta in salted water 2 minutes less than the packet. Drain and toss with 1 tbsp olive oil and 100g of the kefalotyri.
  2. Soften onion in olive oil. Add garlic, then beef. Brown 8 minutes. Add tomatoes, cinnamon, salt and pepper. Simmer 30 minutes until thick.
  3. Make bechamel: melt butter, whisk in flour, then warm milk slowly. Cook 8 minutes until thick. Off heat, whisk in yolks, cheese and nutmeg.
  4. Layer in a deep baking dish: half the pasta, all the meat, the rest of the pasta. Pour bechamel over and smooth. Sprinkle the remaining 50g kefalotyri on top.
  5. Bake at 180 C for 50 minutes until golden. Rest 20 minutes before cutting into squares.

Editor tip. Use the long Greek pastitsio pasta if you can find it; ziti or rigatoni works but the texture is different.

The editor picks for Pastitsio in Athens are still in research. Meanwhile, see the Athens signature-dishes index or the Athens food guide.