Cyprus
Grilled halloumi, spit-roast souvla and meze tables that stretch for hours — a Greek-Turkish-Levantine island kitchen.
Settle in for a Cypriot meze and clear your afternoon: the small plates keep coming — dips and olives, grilled halloumi squeaking hot off the coals, sheftalia caul-wrapped sausages, wine-braised afelia — until a dozen dishes crowd the table. This is a crossroads kitchen, Greek and Turkish and Levantine at once, and it revolves around fire and the island's own squeaky cheese.
The set-piece is souvla, big chunks of pork or lamb turned slowly over charcoal at Sunday gatherings, or kleftiko, lamb sealed in a clay oven with lemon and herbs until it falls from the bone. Sweet things lean old and simple — loukoumades in honey, grape-must shoushoukos — and to finish there's commandaria, an amber dessert wine from the hills near Limassol that may be the oldest named wine still made. A fiery zivania spirit sends you off.
- Halloumi (grilled sheep-and-goat cheese)
- Meze (spread of small plates)
- Souvla (charcoal spit-roast meat)
- Sheftalia (caul-wrapped grilled sausage)
- Kleftiko (slow-roasted lamb)
- Afelia (wine-braised pork)
- Commandaria (sweet dessert wine)
