Best places to eat meze in Cyprus, ranked
Table covered with small meze dishes at a Cypriot taverna
Where to eat a 20-dish meze properly, ranked by region, with prices from €18 a head inland to €35 for fish on the coast.
What a real meze is, and how not to order it
A Cypriot meze is not a selection of starters. It is a fixed procession of 15 to 30 small dishes for a minimum of two people, priced per head — €18 to €25 for meat or mixed, €25 to €35 for fish — and it takes two hours minimum. It opens with olives, tahini, taramosalata, koupepia (stuffed vine leaves) and village salad, moves through halloumi and lountza, grilled mushrooms, louvi with black-eyed beans, and then arrives at the grill: sheftalia, souvla, chicken, pork, and often kleftiko or ttavas from the clay oven.
The mistakes are ordering extra bread and dips at the start, filling up on the first eight plates, and asking for a menu. If the taverna is any good there is no menu for meze, and the kitchen decides. Say what you cannot eat when you sit down, drink the house wine at €6 to €8 a half litre, and pace yourself. Do not order meze at lunch if you intend to do anything afterwards, and do not order it for one — most kitchens will refuse, and the ones that agree serve a reheated approximation.
1. The Krasochoria wine villages above Limassol
The stone villages on the southern Troodos slopes — Omodos, Lofou, Vouni, Koilani, Vasa — are the best meze on the island, and it is not close. These are working villages 30 to 45 minutes up the B8 from Limassol at 700 to 900 metres, where tavernas built into old houses cook with their own vegetables, their own wine and, in several cases, a wood oven that has been going since dawn. Expect €20 to €26 a head and portions calibrated for people who spent the day in a vineyard.
Omodos is the most visited and consequently the most uneven — the square is lovely, the monastery of Timios Stavros is worth 20 minutes, and the tavernas immediately on the square are the weakest. Walk two streets back. Lofou is the one I would drive for: a restored village of perhaps 80 permanent residents on a ridge with a couple of tavernas serving a slow, generous meze, and the drive up through the vines is worth the trip alone. Book at weekends; Nicosia and Limassol families fill these places from 1pm.
2. Fish meze on the Latchi and Polis coast
For fish meze, Latchi harbour in the north-west is the strongest concentration in Cyprus. The boats land in the morning, the tavernas sit on the quay, and a fish meze here runs €28 to €35 a head: tarama and octopus in wine first, then calamari, whitebait, prawns, red mullet, sea bream, sometimes swordfish, and finally whatever was best that morning grilled whole. It is a two-and-a-half-hour commitment and unquestionably the best €35 meal on the island for anyone who likes seafood.
The honest caveat about fish anywhere in Cyprus: much of what is served is imported or farmed, and prices for genuinely local wild fish sold by weight can hit €60 to €80 a kilo. Ask which items are local. Beyond Latchi, the fish tavernas above the coves at Governor's Beach east of Limassol have long-standing reputations, and the small places along Mackenzie Beach in Larnaca do a livelier, cheaper version at €22 to €28 with your feet nearly in the sand.
3. Nicosia's old city, and the best value in Cyprus
Nicosia is where Cypriots eat, and prices reflect a domestic rather than a tourist market. The lanes around Faneromeni and Chrysaliniotissa inside the Venetian walls hold courtyard tavernas doing full meze at €18 to €22 a head, plus the city's mezedopoleia — smaller places that serve eight or ten plates with drinks rather than the full marathon, for €12 to €16. Add a carafe of local wine and this is the cheapest genuinely excellent meal in the country.
Cross at Ledra Street with your passport and the northern half of the walled city adds a different register: kebab houses and grills around Büyük Han and Arasta, strong tea in the han courtyard, and Turkish-Cypriot dishes like şeftali kebab (the same sheftalia, differently spelled), molohiya and pilavuna. Carry cash, because card acceptance is patchier over there. The two halves within one afternoon is the single most interesting eating day in Cyprus, and it costs less than a hotel lunch on the Limassol strip.
4. Limassol city, and 5. the Paphos hills
In Limassol, skip the marina for meze — it is polished, international and priced at €35 to €50 a head for food that is not better. Go instead to the streets around Saripolou Square and Agiou Andreou in the old centre, where restored buildings hold tavernas and mezedopoleia at €20 to €28, or to the working-class grills inland near the old market. The Limassol Wine Festival in the Municipal Gardens in late August and early September is the one time the city's food and drink scene is genuinely unmissable.
Paphos splits sharply. The harbour front and the tourist strip along Poseidonos Avenue serve competent, cautious meze at €22 to €30 a head with laminated menus and photographs — perfectly fine, never memorable. Drive 15 to 30 minutes inland to villages like Kathikas on the Laona plateau, Tsada, Statos-Agios Fotios or Kannaviou and the quality doubles for the same money. Kathikas in particular has two or three long-running tavernas and a cluster of small wineries, and it is 20 minutes from Coral Bay.
6. Kyrenia, and 7. the roadhouse grills nobody photographs
Kyrenia's horseshoe harbour is one of the great settings for dinner in the eastern Mediterranean, ringed by Venetian warehouses under the castle walls. The food is good rather than exceptional and you pay for the view — expect the equivalent of €25 to €35 a head. Better eating is inland: the village of Bellapais below the abbey, and the meyhane-style places in Kyrenia's back streets where meze arrives as 20 cold and hot plates before any grill appears. Take cash and check car insurance before crossing the Green Line.
Finally, the format nobody writes about: the roadside grill. Along the old Limassol–Paphos road, on the approaches to Nicosia, and outside villages everywhere, low buildings with a charcoal pit sell souvla by the portion — big chunks of pork or lamb turned slowly on a long skewer — for €10 to €14 with pitta, salad and chips. Sunday lunchtime is the peak. If you eat one thing in Cyprus that is not meze, make it souvla from a place with a queue of locals and no view whatsoever.
Drinks, timing and the practical rules
Drink Cypriot. The indigenous grapes are xynisteri for whites and mavro and maratheftiko for reds, and the small Krasochoria and Laona wineries have improved enormously over 20 years — a decent bottle in a taverna is €14 to €22, house wine €6 to €8 a half litre. Commandaria, the sweet fortified wine from villages like Zoopigi and Kalo Chorio, has a claim to being the oldest named wine still in production and works better after dinner than most people expect. Zivania, the local grape spirit, arrives free and should be treated with respect.
Timing: Cypriots eat late, and a taverna at 7.30pm in July is empty and cooking for tourists. Arrive at 9pm and the room changes. Sunday lunch runs from about 1pm to 5pm and is the best day to eat in the villages. Book at weekends anywhere in Krasochoria or Kathikas. Tipping is 5 to 10 per cent and a service charge is sometimes already added. Finally, if a place advertises meze in four languages with photographs on a beachfront strip, walk 400 metres inland and try again.
Before you book
The questions people ask about Limassol, answered with this month’s numbers.
Meat or mixed meze runs €18 to €26 a head, fish meze €25 to €35, and both are usually minimum two people. Village tavernas in the Krasochoria and Nicosia's old city sit at the bottom of those bands; harbourfront and marina restaurants in Limassol and Paphos sit at the top for no gain in quality.
The wine villages on the southern Troodos slopes above Limassol — Lofou, Vouni, Koilani and the back streets of Omodos — for meat meze, and Latchi harbour in the north-west for fish. Nicosia's walled old city is the best value at €18 to €22 for a full spread.
Yes, but expect 15 to 30 plates over two hours and do not order anything extra beforehand. Tell the kitchen about dietary restrictions when you sit down, skip lunch, and go at 9pm rather than 7.30. Ordering meze for one is usually refused, and rightly so.
