Eating Greece from the Deck: Tavernas, Meze & Island Wines

A Greek sailing week is as much about the eating as the swimming. This is a country where you moor stern-to on a harbour quay and step off almost into a taverna, where lunch is a slow parade of small plates, and where every island has a wine you won't find at home. Here is how to eat your way around the Aegean from the deck.

The taverna quay

The defining pleasure: in dozens of island harbours you tie up right in front of the tavernas, and the owner may take your lines. Grilled fish landed that morning, a Greek salad heavy with island tomatoes and a slab of feta, a carafe of the house white — this is the rhythm of a Greek charter.

The meze ritual

Order a spread of small plates and share: taramosalata, tzatziki, fava (the yellow split-pea purée of Santorini), grilled octopus, saganaki, dolmades. Slow, sociable and endlessly varied from island to island.

Island specialities

Each island has its own: Naxos's graviera cheese and potatoes, Sifnos's chickpea stew (revithada) cooked overnight in a clay pot, Symi's tiny sweet shrimp, the sun-dried tomatoes and capers of the Cyclades. Ask the crew where the good kitchen is on each island — they know.

The wines to carry home

Santorini's mineral Assyrtiko (grown in low basket-woven vines against the wind), Naxos's whites, the sweet Vinsanto — Greek wine has quietly become world-class. Stock the galley as you go.

Practical notes

• What's included. Crewed charters usually cater breakfast and lunch aboard; dinners ashore and drinks are the fun extras. See what a Greece charter costs.
• Ready to plan? Browse the Cyclades or Ionian, or ask our concierge.