Chania Food Tour: What You Eat and Where to Find It

A Chania food tour walks the old town for three to four hours, stopping at coffee roasters, bakeries, cheese shops, olive oil sellers and a wine merchant, and you eat as you go rather than sitting down to a meal. Expect Greek coffee and mountain tea, loukoumades, barley rusk, kalitsounia, graviera, olive oil straight off a spoon and something stronger at the end.

I did one in Chania, on Crete, and this is the whole thing: every stop, what was on the plate, what our guide told us, and what I would change about it. Chania sits 140 km (87 mi) west of Heraklion at the other end of the island, and its old town is compact enough that a food tour never covers much ground. Crete is the largest island in Greece and the one with a food culture distinct enough to build a walk around.

Our Chania food tour

Our Chania food tour started at the Church of Trimartyri, the cathedral in the old town, where our guide George explained the Cretan diet and where we would be going. The tour I took no longer runs, which is why the shops are named below, and it is also why I have said which of them can still be visited and which cannot.

Coffee, tea and pastries

Coffee, tea and pastries came first, at a coffee roaster on Mousouron street that still uses a traditional Greek coffee grinder. George had us smelling the varieties before anyone was allowed to drink anything, which is a good way to start a food tour and an unusual one.

We moved down the road to Kronos, a pastry shop and bistro on the same street. The coffee drinkers got proper Greek coffee. I do not drink coffee, so I got mountain tea, the dried Sideritis that grows on the Cretan hills and turns up in every kitchen on the island.

The tea was good and the pastries were better. Almond cookies, and loukoumades: fried dough balls a little smaller than a ping-pong ball, filled with hot honey. In the mouth they are just a fried ball until you bite, and then the honey floods out. We would happily have stayed there, and George had to move us on.

Archondaki Bros, 45 Mousouron Street. Traditional coffee roasting and pastries.

Kronos, Mousouron Street. Pastry shop and bistro.

Chania Market

The Chania Market was our next stop, and it is the one part of this tour you cannot repeat right now. The municipal market, a cross-shaped covered hall that opened in 1913, closed in 2022 for a €9 million restoration and has not reopened. The date has moved several times and 2026 is the latest target, so check before you plan a morning around it.

Chania Market is worth explaining anyway, because it is what the tour was built around: a market hall full of small stalls and counters, closer to La Boqueria in Barcelona than to a supermarket, where the produce, cheese, fish and herb sellers all traded side by side.

Our first stop inside was a shop selling Cretan and organic products, herbs and biscuits, where something brown caught my eye that looked like chocolate and was not. It was carob, which the owner told me Greeks call chocolate for poor people. The carob tree is native to the Mediterranean and the Middle East and it grows all over Crete.

The carob has one more claim on your attention. The word carat, the unit used for gemstones and for the purity of gold, comes from the Greek keration, meaning carob seed, because the seeds were used as counterweights. The usual explanation, that carob seeds all weigh the same, turns out to be a myth: researchers have measured them and they vary as much as any other seed. The etymology is real regardless.

I also found bags of mountain tea there, having tried it for the first time an hour earlier, and took one home.

More pastries

More pastries followed, at a bakery in the same market hall, and George used them to teach us about rusk. Rusk is bread baked twice so it keeps, known in Greek as paximadi, and on Crete it is usually barley. You eat it dry, or you soften it with a little water or olive oil, which is how it works in dakos.

Then kalitsounia, the small Cretan pies that come sweet or savoury, filled with soft cheese or cheese and greens. Both were good. By this point I was noticeably full, which is a hazard of grazing across a dozen shops in an afternoon.

Cretan cheeses!

Cretan cheeses came next, at a family cheese shop in the market that made its own, and it was busy enough that the owner served one customer after another without pausing. This is the kind of place a food tour exists to get you into.

We tasted two. One was graviera, the hard sheep’s milk cheese that is Crete’s answer to Gruyère and its most exported cheese. I liked the second one better and I have never been able to work out what it was, which is what happens when you eat and listen at the same time.

Let there be olive oil

Olive oil got its own stop, at a shop by the old city walls, and George was blunt about who that shop was for. No Cretan, he said, buys olives or olive oil in a shop: everyone either has olive trees or has family who do, everyone presses their own, and the bottles on the shelves are there for visitors.

That is not an argument against going in. The range in an olive oil shop in Chania is wider than anything I had seen at home in Belgium, and Cretan cooking runs on the stuff.

We tasted the oils neat, off a spoon, which I had not expected. I like olive oil. I do not especially like eating it from a spoon. There were raisins and crackers to clear the palate between them, clearly not meant to be eaten with the oil, and I would rather have had a piece of rusk.

Something a little stronger

The last stop was a wine shop for a Cretan wine tasting, which is wasted on me because I do not drink wine. The owner produced an alternative: a submarine.

A submarine, in case you have not met one, is a spoonful of a thick white sweet called vanilia, dunked in a glass of cold water. You leave the spoon in for a minute or two until the sweet softens, then lick it off, then drink the water, which has taken on the flavour. Verdict: very sweet, and excellent for exactly one spoonful.

Miden Agan, 70 Daskalogianni Street. Wine shop and delicatessen, trading since 2001 and home to the Wine Center of Crete.

Our Chania food tour: the verdict

The verdict on our Chania food tour is that it was worth doing and slightly the wrong shape. It was the first food tour I had ever been on, so I have nothing to compare it against, but the guide was good, he answered everything, the food was good, and I was not uncomfortably full at the end, which counts for something.

The timing was the problem. A tour sold as three hours ran to more than four, and we were hurried along at several stops, which suggests too many stops rather than a generous guide. George did not seem to mind. After three hours I was ready to go and look at Chania by myself.

The other thing is what we ate. It was heavy on coffee, pastries and tastings and light on actual Cretan cooking. One small sit-down plate, a dakos or a boureki or a bowl of stewed greens, would have tied the whole afternoon to what people here eat for lunch. If you are choosing between tours, ask whether a seated course is included.

The favourite, for the record: the mountain tea and pastries at Kronos.

What is traditional Cretan food?

Traditional Cretan food is the Mediterranean diet in its original form: local cereals, seasonal vegetables, wild greens, fruit, pulses, fish, wine, a great deal of olive oil, and comparatively little meat or dairy. Cooking is mostly baked or grilled, and seasoning is olive oil, lemon and herbs rather than sauces.

Crete is where the modern idea of that diet largely comes from. The Seven Countries Study of the 1950s and 1960s found Cretan men had strikingly low rates of heart disease, which sent researchers looking at what they ate, and the Mediterranean diet was added to UNESCO’s list of intangible cultural heritage in 2010. The simplicity is the point, and it does not cost you flavour, because the ingredients carry it.

Two practical things follow from all of this. Because most of what you eat is grown on the island rather than imported, tavernas are genuinely cheap, so walk away from the harbourfront and into the back streets where locals eat and both the food and the price improve. And Cretans eat late: at 19:00 you may have a restaurant to yourself, and things fill up from about 21:00. Many people eat their main meal in the middle of the day and take mezedes in the evening.

Typical dishes you’ll find in Cretan cuisine:

The dishes you will meet most often in Cretan cuisine are listed below, roughly in the order they arrive on a table.

• Mezedes: mezedes are the small plates Crete is built on, from tzatziki and dolmades to fried squid, and they come with a drink because nobody here drinks without eating.
• Dakos: dakos is a barley rusk topped with grated tomato, soft cheese, olive oil and oregano, and it is the single most Cretan thing on any menu.
• Chochlioi boubouristi: chochlioi boubouristi are snails fried face down with rosemary and vinegar, a summer dish all over the island.
• Fish and seafood: fish is grilled or fried and usually local, with mullet, mackerel, bream and swordfish the ones you will see most.
• Soupia: soupia is cuttlefish cooked with spinach and rice, dark, rich and better than it sounds.
• Gyros and souvlaki: gyros and souvlaki are the Greek standards, common on Crete without being especially Cretan.
• Baked lamb: baked lamb is what appears at celebrations, and Crete does more with lamb and goat than anywhere else in Greece.
• Tsigariasto: tsigariasto is lamb or wild goat browned and then slow-cooked, and it is the dish to order if you order one meat dish.
• Moussaka: moussaka is layered aubergine and minced meat under a tomato sauce and a baked topping.
• Clay-pot stews: stews of meat, tomato and herbs are cooked and served in clay pots.
• Stuffed vegetables: stuffed peppers and tomatoes, filled with rice and herbs, are the standard vegetarian order.
• Anthoi: anthoi are zucchini flowers stuffed with rice, herbs and olive oil.
• Horta: horta are wild greens, boiled and served with lemon juice and olive oil, and they appear on the table more often than any vegetable you recognise.
• Graviera: graviera is the hard sheep’s milk cheese Crete is known for, and Graviera Kritis carries protected designation of origin status.
• Mizithra and anthotyro: mizithra and anthotyro are the soft fresh cheeses, mild and crumbly, and they go into the pies.
• Feta: feta is the brined white cheese everyone knows, in the salad and on the table.
• Staka: staka is not a cheese but the cream skimmed from sheep’s or goat’s milk and cooked down, most often served as staka me avga, with fried eggs.
• Boureki: boureki is Chania’s own savoury pie, layers of zucchini and potato with mizithra and mint, and it is the local dish to look for.
• Kalitsounia: kalitsounia are the small pies, sweet with cheese and honey or savoury with cheese and greens.
• Bougatsa: bougatsa in Chania is filo filled with fresh mizithra and dusted with sugar and cinnamon, eaten for breakfast.
• Galaktoboureko: galaktoboureko is semolina custard baked in filo and soaked in syrup.
• Olive oil: olive oil is in everything, and the local variety is the koroneiki, not the kalamata that older guides sometimes credit to Crete.
• Fennel: fennel turns up in meat dishes, fish dishes and savoury pies to a degree that surprises visitors.
• Honey: Cretan honey, much of it thyme honey from the hills, sweetens most of the desserts.
• Spoon sweets: spoon sweets are fruit candied in syrup and served by the spoonful, usually with a glass of water and usually free.

Did you know the Ancient Greeks ate their meals lying down? There are plenty more fun facts about Greece where that one came from.

Other Chania tours and tours in Crete

Other Chania tours cover the same ground with a guide who is still trading, and the food and drink ones split into two kinds: walking tours of the old town, and half-day or full-day trips out to olive mills and wineries. Since the market hall is shut, ask any old-town tour what it does instead of the market before you book.

The Crete food and drink tours Wonderful Wanderings has linked to are listed below.

• A Chania old town tour with street food, which pairs the historic centre with things to eat as you walk.
• A full-day olive oil and wine tasting at Anoskeli, reached by four-wheel drive.
• A full-day wine and olive oil tour from Chania, taking in family wineries and an olive oil mill.

Two other Crete guides here pick up where a food tour stops. A cooking class in Crete puts you in a kitchen for an afternoon instead of a shop queue, and the pink beach at Elafonissi is the obvious day out from Chania once you have eaten.

Food tours and tastings running in Chania right now, with live prices and availability, are in the panel below.

Where to stay in Chania

Stay in the old town if you want to eat your way around Chania, because everything on this page is within a 15-minute walk of the Venetian harbour. We took a rental house outside the town, which is fine with a car and awkward without one.

Boutique: Elia Fatma Boutique Hotel. In the heart of the old town near the Venetian harbour, a 10-minute walk from the beach, with a certified Greek breakfast, a bar and a sun terrace. Rooms have air conditioning, an espresso maker and a seating area. Check-in is at the reception of Elia Zampeliou Hotel a few doors away on Zampeliou street, which is worth knowing before you arrive with luggage. Check dates for Elia Fatma Boutique Hotel.

Luxury: Ambassadors Residence Boutique Hotel. A restored 1890s house in the Venetian harbour, with air-conditioned rooms and suites, seating areas and mini-bars, most of them looking over the harbour, and some with a spa bath and balcony. Check dates for Ambassadors Residence.

Those two cover the boutique and the top end. For guesthouses, rooms and anything cheaper, search Booking.com and filter on the map around the harbour rather than by district, since Chania’s old town has no useful district names. For a whole house or apartment, which is what we did, Vrbo has more of them here than anywhere else.

How to get to Crete

Fly straight into Chania if Chania is where you are going. Chania International Airport sits on the Akrotiri peninsula about 15 km (9.3 mi) from the old town, and using it saves the 140 km (87 mi) drive from Heraklion that we made. Compare both airports and set a price alert with Trip.com.

Crete is also reachable by overnight ferry from Piraeus, which docks at Souda for Chania and is a genuinely pleasant way to arrive. Check sailings and operators on Direct Ferries.

Once you land you will want a car for anything outside the town, including the wineries and olive mills the day tours visit. Compare suppliers across the island on DiscoverCars, and book early for July and August, when Crete’s hire fleet runs out before the demand does.

The Chania food tour was offered to our group by Viator. I write honestly about comped experiences, which is why the timing and the missing sit-down course are in the verdict above.

WonderfulWanderings Pro Tips

The 5 tips below come from walking this tour and from re-checking every shop on it in 2026, when one of the stops turned out to be a building site.

1. Ask the operator what its tour does instead of the market. The municipal market has been shut since 2022 for a €9 million restoration with a reopening date that keeps moving, and tour listings still promise you a guide waiting in Chania’s bustling market. Three of the stops on our afternoon were inside it, so a tour that has not rebuilt its route around the closure is a shorter tour than it says.
2. Keep the rest of the day free. A tour sold as three hours ran to more than four, with several stops hurried along, which points at too many stops rather than a generous guide. Book nothing for the two hours after it, and accept that you may want to walk off on your own before the last stop anyway.
3. Ask whether a seated plate is included before you book. What we ate was coffee, pastries and tastings, and it was light on Cretan cooking. One small sit-down course, a dakos or a boureki or a bowl of stewed greens, is what ties an afternoon like this to what people here actually eat for lunch.
4. Ask for a piece of rusk at the olive oil tasting. We tasted the oils neat off a spoon, with raisins and crackers to clear the palate between them and nothing to eat the oil on, which is a strange way to meet the product Crete is proudest of. Barley rusk is what a Cretan kitchen would hand you.
5. Say so early if you do not drink coffee or wine. Mountain tea, the dried Sideritis from the Cretan hills, is what the tea drinkers were given at Kronos, and it was the thing I liked most all afternoon and the thing I took home. The wine stop had submarines for the non-drinkers, but only because the owner thought to offer them.

About the author. This guide is written and maintained by the Wonderful Wanderings editorial team. Wonderful Wanderings was founded in 2012 by Sofie Couwenbergh, and the first-hand notes in this post come from her food tour through the old town of Chania on Crete. The team covers Crete and the rest of Greece for independent travellers, including the food tours, cooking classes, hotels, ferries and car hire worth booking, and updates this page when shops, tours and prices change.