Where to stay

City Hotel Comfortable, newly designed and central. It’s close to Ladadika (the old part of town) and the harbourside promenade. Doubles from £87, with buffet breakfast. Komninon 11, Thessaloniki 54624, 00 30 23102 69421, http://www.cityhotel.gr

Electra Palace Hotel Grand hotel close to the city’s museums and historic monuments. Doubles from £102 with buffet breakfast. Aristotelous Square 9, Thessaloniki 54624, 00 30 23102 94000, http://www.electrahotels.gr

Imaret Hotel Spacious, elegant and peaceful, this well-designed hotel is in the heart of Kavala’s old quarter. The restaurant is supplied by the organic kitchen gardens and menus are seasonal, wines local and international. Doubles from £237, breakfast £16pp, dinner from £43pp. Th. Poulidou 30-32, Kavala 65110, 00 30 25106 20151, http://www.imaret.gr

Oikoperiigitis Hotel Traditional-style building just a few minutes walk from Lake Kerniki. Ideal for an overnight stay if you’re visiting from Thessaloniki (there’s no public transport). Doubles from £39, including breakfast. Kerkini Lake, Serres 62055, 00 30 23270 41450, http://www.oikoperiigitis.gr

The Excelsior Centrally located on a quiet street in a neo-classical building, this small boutique hotel is close to the promenade, shops, restaurants, museums and artistic centres. Doubles from £110 with buffet breakfast. Komninon 10, Thessaloniki 54624, 00 30 23100 21020, http://www.excelsiorhotel.gr

Travel Information

Thessaloniki is the capital of Greek Macedonia. Time is two hours ahead of the UK, currency is the euro. In July, the average high temperature is 31C and the average low is 19C.

GETTING THERE
British Airways flies from London Gatwick to Thessaloniki Airport five times a week from £162 return. http://www.ba.com
RyanAir flies daily from London Stansted to Thessaloniki, starting at £146 return. http://www.ryanair.com

RESOURCES
Visit Greece has comprehensive information on northern Greece, including cultural and historic sites, places of natural beauty, suggestions for itineraries, festivals and travel tips. visit http://www.visitgreece.gr
Wine Roads of Northern Greece has information on the wines and wineries of Greek Macedonia and suggestions for planning a route and travel itinerary. http://www.wineroads.gr

FURTHER READING
From Democrats to Kings (The Overlook Press, £15) is a fascinating tale of Macedonian history up to Alexander the Great

CARBON COUNTING
Want to offset your carbon emissions when visiting Thessaloniki? Make a donation at climatecare.org and support environmental projects around the world. Return flights from London to Thessaloniki produce 0.71 tonnes C02, meaning a cost to offset of £5.33.

Where to eat

Prices are per person for two courses with half a carafe of wine, unless otherwise stated.

Blé A stylish bakery and café with a range of breads, sweet pastries and Cretan specialities From £17. Agias Sofias 19, Thessaloniki, 00 30 23102 31200, http://www.ble.com.gr

Elodia A country taverna with a large, attractive terrace just metres from Lake Kerkini. Owner Chrisanthi Markou’s dishes include buffalo meat sausages, meatballs and stews, fresh fish and home-grown vegetables. There’s good barrel wine, too. From £14. 00 30 23270 41502, http://www.elodia.gr

En Plo Busy and friendly restaurant that spreads across the road and on to the beach in summer. Mezedes prepared by owners Kiki and Giannis Tzimoka include freshly made taramasalata, tiny fried fish, mussels, sardines, dips and horta. Main courses depend on the fish caught that day. Local wines, including Biblia Chora and Gerovassiliou. From £16. Paralia Karianis, Kavala 64008, 00 30 25940 51682

Fri Modern fish mezedopoleio (see food glossary) with a short, seasonal menu. Try risotto with limpets or sepia (cuttlefish ink), omelette with smoked pork, octopus eggs with handmade pasta or pan-fried lithrini (pandora fish). A good selection of ouzos and tsipouro (grappa) from the mainland and surrounding islands. From £16 for three mezedes and ouzo. Doxis 4, Kato Ladadika, Thessaloniki, 00 30 69719 10272

Kafenion Prigipos Café opposite the birthplace of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk (now a museum). A selection of wine, ouzo and tsipouro plus traditional mezedes; try siglino (cured pork), skaras (sausages ‘from the grill’) or small preserved fish. From £16 for three mezedes and ouzo. Apostolou Pavlou 22, Thessaloniki 54634, 00 30 23102 48188, http://www.prigipos.gr

Ktima Gerovassiliou Elegant café and terrace overlooking the vineyard. Chef Kiki Anestakis’s menu of local food, traditional flavours and seasonal greens from the café’s garden includes fava (mashed beans) with octopus, capers and kritamo (samphire), fried calamari with green salad and sweet pastries. From £14. Epanomi 57500, 00 30 23920 44567, http://www.gerovassiliou.gr

Nea Folia A small, unassuming taverna, owners George Chlouzos and Dimitris Pardalidis source many regional cheeses and products. Dishes include pork with okra, pligouri (cracked wheat) and tomato salad with sultanas, fava, apaki (smoked pork), and sweet cheese and cinnamon kataifi (see food glossary). There are local and barrel wines. From £16. Aristomenous 4, Thessaloniki 54634, 00 30 23109 60383

Ouzeri Agora Well-known ouzerie serving a variety of mezedes, such as dolmades (stuffed vine leaves), saganaki, meatballs, fish and a selection of ouzo, wine and tsipouro. From £17 for three mezedes and ouzo. Kapodistriou 5, Thessaloniki, 00 30 23105 32428, http://www.ouzeriagora.gr

Sempriko Restaurant and café with a small shop in the shadow of the old city walls. Fresh and friendly, the menu of local foods and dishes includes smoked mackerel with lentils, grilled octopus, regional cheeses, purslane salad and sardines wrapped in vine leaves. A small selection of good Greek wines is also available. From £17. Fragkon 2, Thessaloniki, 00 30 23105 57513

To Fileto A modern taverna and café overlooking a small park and lake. Enjoy the local dishes of oven-baked lamb and potatoes, moussaka served with yoghurt, aubergine and eggs, or owner Ioannis Mavridis’s favourite – a stew of wild boar and red wine. Good local wines are also available to sample by the glass or bottle. From £14. Papadiamanti 9, Drama 66100, 00 30 25211 06100

Food Glossary

Fava

A salata (dip) made from dried fava beans mashed with olive oil and lemon juice or wine vinegar, and served with other dips as a meze

Glyko

Short for glyko tou koutaliou; glyko is made with fruit (cherries, figs, pear, quince) and sometimes small vegetables (carrots and aubergines). A favourite glyko is made from curls of orange peel

Halvah

Dense, very sweet confection made with sesame seeds and sugar (traditionally honey). Favourite extra ingredients are pistachios, almonds and chocolate

Horta

An umbrella term meaning ‘greens’. Young horta, or shoots, are eaten raw or in salads, while older horta is boiled and served with olive oil, sea salt and lemon juice or wine vinegar

Kataifi

Finely shredded filo dough that’s used to make cheese or nut-filled, honey-syrup soaked small pastries of the same name

Kavourmas

Pork cooked and preserved in its own fat and spiced according to family or regional taste

Kritamo

Prized horta (samphire) that grows near the sea, often in difficult-to-reach places. It goes well served alongside seafood

Laganas

Traditionally shaped pasta (in squares or wide, flat strips) served with a sauce or in stews

Lakerda

Brine-preserved bonito (large fish that moves between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean) or tuna, served in thin slices as a meze

Mastic

The resin collected from the bark of a small bush. Unique to the eastern Mediterranean, it’s sold as granules that are pounded to a powder with sugar before flavouring ice cream, sweet cheese pies, rice puddings and drinks

Meze, mezedes

(plural), mezedakia (small mezedes). Small savoury dish served with ouzo, tsipouro or wine Mezedopoleio A café serving

Mezedopoleio

A café serving mezedes and drinks – barrel wines or bottles from a local winery, and a selection of ouzos and tsipouro

Touloumotyri

Strong sheep’s milk cheese made in a sheep’s stomach and stored for weeks (or months). Used in small pies or as a meze

Trachanas

Traditional pasta made from crushed wheat soaked in goat or sheep’s milk then dried in the sun and served as a thick soup

Tsipouro

Also called raki. Distilled spirit made in homes and villages from the remnants of the vine

Food and Travel Review

We’ve got the Greeks to thank for many things. They gave us democracy, philosophy and mathematics. We see their artistic flair in almost every building that we look at and draw on their language with every single phrase we utter but it’s the way they spent their downtime where Food and Travel really bends its knee. They gave us gastronomia ‘the art and science of good eating’ and they gave us wine. Glorious, glorious wine.

They were one of the first civilisations to cultivate wine, with the earliest grow sites dating back to 4500BC. Now some 200 native varietals exist, more than any other wine-growing region on Earth. You’d think with such experience their quality would be unimpeachable but through most our lives, Greek wine has been given the kind of scorn reserved for chardonnay through the Nineties (step forward, retsina). But times have changed. As Greek food is enjoying its time in the sun – London has seen a spate of high-profile restaurant openings in the past few months – Greek wine is picking up awards and being added to wine lists left, right and centre, particularly wines produced in the northern region, Greek Macedonia.

The area is a treasure trove of grapes awaiting rediscovery. One such grape is the malagousia (or malagouzia), which has been rescued from oblivion by oenologist Vangelis Gerovassiliou. ‘Our Macedonian grapes are more elegant, less ribald than the grapes of the hotter south, the malagousia most of all. It has freshness and beautiful acidity,’ he tells me as we walk through Ktima Gerovassiliou, his family’s winery on the southern outskirts of Thessaloniki. All the estate’s wines are designated PGI (Protected Geographical Indication) Epanomi (the region) and some, including the highly aromatic malagousia, a minerally white wine (equal parts assyrtiko and malagousia), and avaton, a blend of three indigenous grapes – limnio (a Cretan varietal), mavroudi and mavrotragano (deep crimson, highly tannic) – are international multi-award winners, too.

Vangelis has been a trailblazer for a new generation of Greek winemakers. He studied in France and came back to Greece 30 years ago to re-establish quality winemaking in a country that had seen its industry destroyed by the centuries-long occupation of the alcohol-averse Ottomans and periods of heavy taxation.

On the terrace of the winery’s café, with its views over the Saronic Gulf, chef Kiki Anestakis is one of a new generation of Greek-trained chefs. ‘I grew up knowing good lamb in Australia but now I love fish most of all,’ she says, as we enjoy fagri (sea bream) with horta (wild greens) and gold-hued, home-grown potatoes, and little savoury fig tarts with avgotaraho (tarama, or preserved fish roe) and purslane (glystrida, a horta), with a malagousia. ‘And now tell me what you think of this glyko (spoon sweet) of small grapes preserved in malagousia syrup.’ It is delicious.

We leave Thessaloniki, once the ‘second city’ of the powerful Byzantine empire, to travel east to Biblia Chora winery where, one day 20 years ago, a Macedonian farmer brought a large, slightly tapering grape to winemakers Vassilis Tsaktsarlis and Annegret Stamos. It piqued their curiosity. ‘We found a single, very large vine with thick stalks and roots more than 20 metres long,’ Annegret tells me. ‘From the shape of the grapes, we knew it was an indigenous Greek varietal but we’d never seen one like it before. It’s believed to be a local varietal from the time of the Phoenicians (circa 15th-3rd century BC), when this region was famous for its very good wines, but its original name is unknown.’ The wine, Biblios Oenos, is still waiting for official recognition of its grapes’ lineage but the light and dainty rosé and earthy, deep red wines are an exciting reminder of the invaluable contribution Macedonia and its people have made to our knowledge and enjoyment of wine for more than 2,000 years.

The climate and soil conditions here (a mix of clay, chalk and small stones) on the slopes of Mount Pangaion are ideal for white grapes. There’s a significant difference between day and night temperatures and, at 380m above sea level, cool northerly breezes from the Aegean Sea contribute to acidic and intensely aromatic wines. Biblia Chora makes white wines from assyrtiko grapes (with a more gentle flavour than the flinty-tasting wines of Santorini), sauvignon blanc and semillon, and red wines from agiorgitiko (St George) grapes (native to the Peloponnese peninsula). Following in the footsteps of the area’s ancient winemakers, the organic winery is experimenting with many different varieties. ‘We need ten years to know what to do with each one in the vineyard and in the cellar,’ explains Annegret, as we stand by the small holding tanks, the futuristic looks of which belie the history outside.

To the north of Macedonia’s wine country, the famous film festival town of Drama (we’re pretty sure the organisers chose the town based on its name) has a distinctive cuisine and wine heritage to match. There are springs everywhere but Akis Papadopoulos, of Wine Art, tells me: ‘The clay soil and our continental climate is ideal for our vines. Until ten years ago, we took the safe road and grew cabernet sauvignon and sauvignon blanc grapes but now we grow our native grapes – assyrtiko, agiorgitiko and malagousia. We’re also exploring the potential of other local varietals as we believe more people now want new tastes, even if in reality they’re old ones.’

In Drama’s To Fileto restaurant, we try Wine Art’s Idisma Drios (sweetly oaked) assyrtiko with fish soup, a herb-scented malagousia with grilled chicken and aromatic rigani (Greek oregano), and Techni Alipias red (agiorgitiko, merlot) with tzigerosarmas (goat liver, rice, onion and dill wrapped in caul fat), one of the many well-spiced dishes favoured by the Greeks of Asia Minor, who came to live in Greece nearly 100 years ago when modern Turkey was born.

One of the routes the founders of modern Turkey took to Thessaloniki was west along the fig- and chestnut-lined ‘old road’ from Drama, passing across the foothills of mountains to Lake Kerkini. As befits a region that has hosted so many transitory people, this lake is a also major migratory route for storks, cormorants, egrets, herons and black kites. In autumn and winter, thousands of flamingos flock there. In summer, a similar number of pelicans arrive from north Africa: ‘Thrilling to look at but bad- tempered and feisty when we ring them,’ a conservationist says. It’s a gorgeous tableau and sets the scene for our food and wine.

Local tavern owner Chrisanthi Markou makes good use of the buffalo that call it home. On the terrace of Elodia, we enjoy fresh buffalo cheese, tomato, rokka (rocket) and caper salad with buffalo feta (more delicately flavoured than its sheep counterpart) and buffalo saganaki (fried cheese) with refreshingly crisp, local barrel wine. ‘You will need latholemono (olive oil and lemon juice sauce) for the sausages (dark-red buffalo meat) as they have little fat of their own,’ says Chrisanthi, pouring a copious quantity over them.

Forty years ago, markets were the large beating heart of Macedonian Thessaloniki. Today, they’re much smaller. But in among the vegetables, olives, cheeses and souvenirs, you can still find stalls selling ‘old-style’ foods such as fermented anchovies, dolmades (stuffed vine leaves) and cafés serving coffee with bougatsa (custard pie soaked in honey syrup) or mezedes (meze) with ouzo or barrel retsina.

Modern retsina (pine-resinated white wine) is a different wine to the poor-quality drink known to many tourists. It was renowned by Ancient Greeks, and winemaker Stelios Kechris, of Thessaloniki winery Stelios Kechris Domaine, wants to restore its reputation. His light and elegant The Tear Of The Pine, made from assyrtiko grapes and with its own ‘appellation by tradition’ (resin is added at the start of fermentation and removed at the end), has quite rightly won international awards.

Today, Macedonia – once ruled by Alexander the Great, a lover of good food, wine and battles – now exports its fine wines to international centres of modern gastronomy. Costas Spiliadis, owner of Estiatorio Milos restaurant, in London’s St James, reflects: ‘Ten years ago, good Greek wines were a well-kept secret. Now, guests ask us how to pronounce the wines they want to drink – assyrtiko (ass-eer-tee-ko), malagousia (mal-a-goozia), xinomavro (kseeno-mavro). I’m very happy.’ We’re sure he is. He and the restaurateurs across the world who are enjoying boom time for quality Greek food and wine.