Guides ·Food & drink

The souvlaki pita, the national €5 meal

The default cheap meal in Cyprus is a pita stuffed at a grill counter. Ask for souvlaki, which here means chunks of grilled pork on a skewer, or sheftalia, minced pork and lamb wrapped in caul fat and grilled until crisp; the mixed option splits the difference. Into the pita go tomato, onion, parsley, cucumber and often chips, with lemon rather than sauce. Prices run €4.50 to €6 across the island and portions defeat most people. A gyros pita, carved from the vertical spit, costs about the same.

The good places are recognisable: charcoal rather than gas, a queue of locals, and a spit that is visibly turning down rather than sitting full. In Limassol, look along Anexartisias and Gladstonos and in the lanes behind Saripolou; in Nicosia, the grills off Ledra Street and around the old town do a roaring lunchtime trade; in Paphos, the counters near the Ktima market beat anything on the harbour. Add a bottle of Keo for €2 to €3 and you are still under €10.

Bakeries and the €4 breakfast

Cypriot bakeries are the single best value on the island. Zorbas, the ubiquitous chain, opens at dawn in every town and sells tiropita cheese pies, spanakopita, eliopita studded with olives, koupes, which are bulgur shells filled with spiced mince, and hot village bread. Nothing on the counter costs more than about €2.50, and a coffee plus two pastries comes to €4 to €5. Independent neighbourhood bakeries in the old towns of Limassol, Larnaca and Paphos do the same thing better and cheaper.

Two items to look for specifically: koupes, at around €1.50 to €2 each, which are the perfect standing lunch, and bougatsa or a warm cheese pie eaten on the seafront before the heat arrives. Around Orthodox Easter, flaounes appear, cheese-filled pastries studded with raisins and sesame that are only made for a few weeks. Buy a pie, a bottle of water and a piece of fruit and you have a beach breakfast for under €5 with change from the hotel breakfast you skipped.

Old-town home cooking for €8 to €10

Every town has a handful of unglamorous tavernas serving mageirefta, the pot dishes cooked in the morning and ladled out at lunch: stifado, beans with greens, stuffed peppers, moussaka, lamb with potatoes. Portions are large, the wine is by the carafe, and a plate typically costs €8 to €12. In Nicosia, Mattheos near the Faneromeni church has been feeding old-town workers this way for decades, with the daily selection sitting in trays and no menu worth reading.

In Limassol, look inland from the seafront in the streets around the market; in Paphos, the grills and family tavernas around Ktima's Agoras Street, including the long-established Fettas Corner on Ioanni Agroti, where a full plate stays well under €15. The trick is timing: mageirefta are made for lunch, roughly noon to 3pm, and by evening the good ones are sold out and the kitchen switches to the grill. Turn up at 12.30pm and you eat what the cook actually meant you to eat.

Sandwiches, koupes and the halloumi-lountza rule

A halloumi and lountza sandwich, grilled cheese with smoked and coriander-cured pork loin in a bread roll or pita, costs €4 to €5 and is the island's best cheap sandwich. Order it toasted with tomato. Vegetarian versions swap in mushrooms or extra halloumi with grilled peppers for the same money. Small kiosks near beaches, university areas and bus stations do these all day, and unlike a grill counter they are quick.

Kiosks, called periptera, also solve the beach problem: cold drinks, ice creams, crisps and sandwiches at prices set for locals rather than sunbeds. A large bottle of water is under €1, a beer around €1.50 to €2 and an ice cream €2. Compare that with the beach bar three metres away charging €6 for the same beer and the calculation makes itself. In Limassol, the kiosks along the Molos promenade and near Dasoudi are the ones that keep a beach day cheap.

Self-catering and the picnic maths

If your hotel has a fridge or you are in an apartment, one supermarket run transforms the budget. Alphamega, Sklavenitis and Lidl all stock the essentials: a 250g block of halloumi €3 to €4, a pack of pita €1.20, tomatoes and cucumbers under €2, olives, a bag of oranges €2, a bottle of drinkable local Xynisteri or Mavro at €5 to €8. Add a slice of watermelon and lunch for two on the sand costs under €10 total.

Where this really pays off is on day trips. Driving to the Akamas, Kourion or the Troodos villages, there is often nothing but one overpriced kiosk at the site, so a boot full of bread, halloumi, tomatoes and cold water is both cheaper and better. Picnic tables sit in the Troodos forest sites at Platania and Kampos tou Livadiou, free to use, with taps and shade. Just take your rubbish out and do not light anything in fire season.

Where cheap eating goes wrong

The two traps are geographic. Harbourfront rows in Kato Paphos and the square in Ayia Napa carry laminated photo menus, greeters on the pavement and prices 40 percent above what the same dish costs 200 metres inland; the food is rarely the point of those addresses. Hotel beach bars on the Amathus strip charge €7 to €9 for a cocktail and €6 for a club sandwich, which is fine if it is your reason for being there and expensive if it is habit.

Two more small things. Cover charges for bread and the small dishes that arrive unasked are usually included, but a few tourist restaurants itemise them, so glance at the bill. And a 10 percent service charge is commonly added in resort areas, meaning any extra tip is genuinely optional. Walk one street back from any seafront in Cyprus and the price drops while the cooking improves; that is the whole rule, and it holds in Limassol, Paphos, Larnaca and Protaras alike.

Frequently asked questions

What people ask before they set off on this one.

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