Dakos is a signature dish of Greece; we have verified places to eat it in Heraklion. A barley rusk soaked just enough by grated tomato, then buried under crumbled myzithra, oregano, capers and a heavy pour of Cretan olive oil. Start with where to eat Dakos in Heraklion.
Dakos · Heraklion
A barley rusk soaked just enough by grated tomato, then buried under crumbled myzithra, oregano, capers and a heavy pour of Cretan olive oil. It is the plate that tells you whether a kitchen respects its ingredients.
Dakos began as shepherd food. Barley rusk, twice-baked so it kept for months, travelled up to the summer pastures with cheese and oil, and softened with whatever tomato or water was to hand. The name comes from the rusk itself, a paximadi cut from a barley loaf. Cretan households ate it as a working lunch long before it appeared on restaurant menus, and it only became a taverna standard in the second half of the twentieth century, once tomatoes were cheap and plentiful across the Messara plain. Purists in Heraklion still argue about whether the rusk should be dipped in water first, and about whether feta is ever an acceptable substitute for fresh myzithra.
Where to eat in Heraklion:
- Merastri
- Parasties
Where to eat Dakos in Heraklion: the editor picks