Small and slightly bigger stores feature shelves loaded with premium quality products
Products supplied by small domestic producers, stretching from Thrace and Epirus to Crete, as well as Mediterranean flavours and Far East touches are all represented at delicatessens in Thessaloniki. Like all modern big cities, Thessaloniki offers extensive culinary coverage. Residents take their food seriously and this city has deep culinary roots. The delicatessens in the city centre are filled with quality products and gourmet selections, enabling new discoveries with every visit. You can always expect to find something new that will give your cooking a unique gustatory touch and the dinner table a celebratory overtone. The people who work at these delicatessens know their products well and are more than willing to share some of their knowledge.
Edodimon, formerly known as Kosmas
Virtually all Thessaloniki locals with even the slightest of interest in gourmet cuisine have, at one time or another, walked through the doors of Edodimon, formerly known as Kosmas, at the heart of the city, on Vasileos Irakliou. This delicatessen, a shrine for enthusiasts of quality food products, has been in business for almost a century. The products on offer here include lakerda (cured skipjack tuna), fresh bread, aged cheese varieties, charcuterie from all over Greece, trahana (traditional pasta made with wheat flour) varieties, herbal teas from Mount Olympus. Above all, proprietors Stathis and Kostas offer impeccable customer service.
26 Vasileos Irakliou, +30 2310 284749
To Pantopolio Tis Thessalonikis
Nearly twenty years ago, grandchildren linked to the aforementioned Kosmas enterprise, established their own gastronomic spot in the centre of the city, at 12 Komninon St. The spot has even the most demanding of Thessaloniki customers covered for their casserole or dinner table needs. It stocks Greek products as well as a wide range of imported products from European gastronomic hot spots. The product range includes kavourmas (cured beef) from the Kerkini area in northern Greece, chorizo pork sausage from the Iberian peninsula, aged Naxos graviera cheese, top-quality parmesan choices, honey with Kozani saffron, chocolates with chili peppers and pickles. The grocery also offers wine varieties, tsipouro and ouzo selections, as well as an endless collection of salad dressings from all over the world. Directly next door, the shop’s owners have also established a small fruit and vegetables store selling organic products, making a visit to these side-by-side ventures all that you need when preparing for a special dinner.
12 Komninon, +30 2310 244684
Olicatessen
Olicatessen, in the Ano Ladadika area’s old Fragomahala district, is a delightful shop devoted to acquainting the public with the finer details of olive oil. Hailing from northern Greece, I admit that I learnt about good olive oil in the Peloponnese, renowned for its produce. This is where I first took in the marvelous aroma of fruity early-harvest olive oil and gradually began to realise the amazing varieties of this blessed food product.
Alexandros Stefanidis, an environmental engineer with a passion for good olive oil and sustainability, decided, eight years ago, to establish a shop stocked with eclectic food products and further acquaint Thessaloniki residents with olive oil. His shop is exemplary, including in terms of design, with rustic wooden shelves and benches as well as old-fashioned floor tiles. It is stocked with hundreds of top-quality products.
“We try to market lesser-known products when we believe that it makes sense to support a gastronomic tradition or specific producers. Not too long ago, we ordered amygdalota (chewy almond biscuits) from all over Greece and organised a themed event for this magical food product. Thirty different and rare types of amygdalota, primarily from the islands, filled the shop,” Alexandros Stefanidis explained with a passion. “The store’s basic concept focuses on Greek products and, during Christmas and Easter, only, we bring in some imported products, such as Italian panettone, for example,” he continued.
Besides being a delicatessen, the shop also organises tasting seminars on olive oil, wine, cheese varieties and any other product requiring deeper knowledge. Until now, Olicatessen has organised an incredible total of 1,209 seminars, the proprietor pointed out, noting that his passion for the venture keeps growing as the public embraces the overall effort. Olicatessen offers gastronomic insight for both locals and tourists. On the way out, I could not help but keep marveling at the special products on the shelves, including Karaggelis molasses, a superb range of herbs and teas, Agrozymi brand Pontian pasta varieties, crispy perek (Pontian crepe-thin pita bread), Kymi figs, melekounia (sweets from Rhodes), as well as olive oil from all over Greece. All this bounty and effort by hundreds of small-scale producers, under the one roof at a shop measuring just a few square metres, is certainly promising for the future of this town’s gastronomy.
4 Victor Hugo, Ano Ladadika
+30 231 3030286
olicatessen.gr
Mia Feta
Sparkling, bright and possessing an atmosphere that is finely balanced between deli and bar, Mia Feta has clocked up eight years of gastronomic life on Thessaloniki’s Pavlou Mela St. A bold initiative from a prosperous family with highly specialised cheese expertise, this shop emerged as the missing element to establish the family enterprise as a vertically integrated business. Besides running a renowned organic cheesery in Grevena, west of Thessaloniki, the Kouvellas family also maintains its own farmland yielding ingredients for its livestock feed as well as a livestock feed production facility. The family decided to also establish itself in the retail market by launching Mia Feta, declaring the venture as the world’s first feta bar, for a new perspective on Greece’s most popular traditional cheese. Besides its various feta choices, the spot is also stocked with a wide range of cheese varieties from the Kouvellas cheesery, the overwhelming majority of these organic. It also offers milk, yoghurt drinks, yoghurts and white cheese made with goat’s milk. Its flavoured cheese products, including feta made with tomato or olives and domestic herbs, are a revelation. In addition to the dairy products, the bar justifies its feta-bar tag by serving authentic Greek breakfast on a daily basis, selections including sliced bread with eggs, rice pudding sprinkled with cinnamon and pies, a version with wild greens being the dominant offering. The place is also contributing to Thessaloniki’s new gastronomic scene. On my autumn visit, I tried chestnut velouté soup, graviera cheese velouté with black truffle and almonds, as well as handmade ravioli filled with cheese. On the way out, feeling blissful with the aftertaste of good food, I envisioned feta bars popping up in various parts of the world as gastronomic ambassadors to the country’s favourite cheese and culinary culture, before heading downhill towards the White Tower, Thessaloniki’s signature landmark.
14 Pavlou Mela
tel. +30 2310 221120
miafetafetabar.gr
