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In Part 1 we set the table: fava, saganaki, tzatziki, olive, vine leaf, bread and chili were the first seven roles. We actually planned to write Part 2 only after our holiday closure. But a table that waits in the kitchen doesn't get any better – so the sequel comes now. Mastiha has been closed for the holidays since Sunday, October 4, and we're back for you from Friday, October 16. Taking stock: zero answers We checked under Part 1: so far there isn't a single answer. No vot

In a mezedopolio, something happens that hardly happens in any other restaurant: nobody orders “their” dish. The plates land in the middle, the forks start wandering, and after ten minutes no one remembers who ordered what. That is no accident – that is the actual recipe. So today we are not asking what is on the table, but who is sitting around it. Because every good group works like a good meze table: it needs different people who complete each other. A word with food insid

Picture a table: meze, a glass of wine, a coffee, a tavli board. And in the middle stands a basket. Not for bread, but for phones. The kafenion knew no scrolling In the traditional Greek kafenion, life happened at the table: people debated, rolled the dice at tavli, let the komboloi slide through their fingers and sipped a coffee that took its time. Whoever had a newspaper read from it aloud or argued about it. Nobody called it “digital detox”. It was simply the evening. Toda

Picture a cake. Somewhere inside it is hidden a coin. Whoever finds it in their slice has luck – for the whole year. That's how the new year begins in many Greek families: with the vasilopita. What Is a Vasilopita? The vasilopita is the New Year's cake, named after Saint Basil, whose day is celebrated on 1 January. A coin, the “flouri”, is baked into the dough. The cake is cut at the turn of the year, and the slice with the coin is considered a lucky charm. Details differ fro

On Tuesday, 29.09.2026, we turned back the clock on Arndtstraße – and you turned it back with us. Live music, 1960 prices and a form of payment that hasn't been seen at a cash register for almost 25 years. The Drachmen Fest was a success, and you made it one. So first and from the bottom of our hearts: thank you. The Drachmas Are Still Out There Almost 25 years after the end of the drachma, many of you still had some: in drawers, in old wallets, tucked between holiday photos.

Tonight from 5 pm: Drachmen Fest at our place, Arndtstraße 12. It's today – and after that, only 5 days until our summer break. Now, the bet. You have one euro in your pocket. Just one. The question isn't what you can buy with it – the question is what you would buy with it. And before you answer, one fact that complicates things: when the euro was introduced, the conversion rate for Greece was fixed at 340.75 drachmas per 1 euro. Your single euro would suddenly be a small fo

In Berlin, people walk to get somewhere: to the U-Bahn, to the corner shop, to an appointment. In Greece there is a word for the exact opposite – Volta (βόλτα). A volta is a walk whose purpose is to have no purpose. So what exactly is a volta? The word probably comes from Italian (volta – a turn), and that is exactly what a volta is: a round. You take one in the early evening, after dinner or on Sunday, along the promenade, around the village square, up the main street and ba

TikTok and Instagram are full of videos from Greek weddings: someone steps alone into the middle of the circle, the music slows down, everyone else claps along — and suddenly that one person dances for minutes, eyes closed, sometimes dropping to their knees, sometimes almost stumbling. The comments are full of "😂 he's drunk" or "wow, what moves." Both completely miss what's actually happening. The dance is called zeibekiko, and — just like the bouzouki we talked about the ot

Scroll through Instagram or TikTok long enough, and you'll hear it: that metallic, slightly piercing melodic run that instantly says "Greece" — even though almost nobody knows which instrument is actually playing. It's the bouzouki. And its history is far less postcard-pretty than today's viral sound suggests. The bouzouki didn't arrive with the ancient Greeks — it arrived with refugees. After the Asia Minor Catastrophe of 1922 and the population exchange that followed, over

In Germany, there's almost always a clear hierarchy on the plate: one main dish, with a side dish playing a supporting role. The star is decided before the fork even reaches the table. In Greece, it's different — and not just because of taste, but because of an idea that's over 2,000 years old. The word "meze" originally comes from Persian ("mazze" = taste), traveled through the Ottoman Empire into Greek, and became something entirely its own: a way of eating together where n

When a Greek football team scores a goal, a student passes their exams, or a couple announces their engagement, people say: “Panigyrizoun.” – “They're celebrating wildly.” What almost nobody hears anymore is the village festival still echoing inside that word. The Greek verb for “to celebrate,” panigyrizo, comes straight from panigyri – the village festival held in honour of a saint, a tradition dating back to antiquity. Even back then, paneguris literally meant “the whole ga

In Greece, olive oil is affectionately called “to igro chrysafi” – the liquid gold. But the real power of this oil shows itself not only on the plate, but in the language itself. When Greeks want to say that someone has smoothly handled a tricky situation – calmed down an official, solved a problem with a bit of finesse – they say: “To ladose.” Literally: “He oiled it.” The expression comes straight from the kitchen: just as a squeaky hinge suddenly glides silently after a dr

Anyone visiting Greece for the first time and arranging to meet at 6pm quickly learns an important lesson: 6pm means roughly 6pm. Maybe 6:30. Nobody gets worked up about it, nobody rushes to apologize. Instead you'll hear a relaxed "siga-siga" – literally "slowly, slowly". What can look like carelessness to outsiders is actually one of the oldest philosophies of life in Europe. Behind it lies an ancient Greek distinction between two kinds of time: Chronos, the measured time o

Sometimes an entire national icon is born out of pure desperation. Thessaloniki, September 1957, the International Fair: a Nestlé representative named Dimitris Vakondios just wants his usual instant coffee during his break. Problem: no hot water anywhere in sight. But there's a shaker at the stand – actually meant for whipping up a children's cocoa drink in seconds. Vakondios pours in coffee powder, cold water and ice cubes, shakes hard – and ends up with a suit covered in co

In every Greek kafeneio, one sound simply belongs: the clatter of dice and wooden pieces on an open board. Two men sit across from each other, a coffee goes cold, and neither one looks at their phone – they're playing tavli. The word simply means "board", and that's exactly what it is: a wooden case that opens up into two playing surfaces. Tavli is ancient – dice games on similar boards can be traced back roughly 5,000 years to Mesopotamia, and even in antiquity Greeks are sa

Imagine your phone ringing all day – not because of an emergency, but because today is your day. No invitation needed, no warning expected: friends, neighbours, the cousin you haven't seen in years, simply show up at your door. In Greece this day is called the Giorti – the name day – and for many Greeks it matters more than their actual birthday. The Greek Orthodox calendar dedicates at least one saint to nearly every day of the year. Anyone named after a saint automatically

There are evenings in a Greek taverna when no full sentence is needed. Someone raises a glass, the music swells, and suddenly the whole table shouts just one word: Opa! It means nothing – and everything at once. Joy, encouragement, "watch out!", "keep going!", sometimes even anger. Greeks shout it while dancing, while toasting, while watching football, even when something falls off a table. One word for every occasion, precisely because it never needs to mean just one thing.

You've eaten, drunk and laughed. The plates are empty, and in our minds we're already at the bill. Then the owner comes to the table once more: a small bowl of fruit, a piece of halva, a little dish of yogurt with honey, or a shot glass for everyone. “Kerasma,” he says simply. On the house. The word is older than it sounds. It belongs to the verb “kerno” – to treat someone, to buy someone a drink – which goes back to the ancient “keránnymi”: to mix. In antiquity, wine was rar

Anyone who enters a kafenio in Greece hears it before seeing it: a soft, steady clicking. Click, click, click. At the next table sits an older gentleman, coffee in front of him, his gaze somewhere in the distance. Between his fingers glides a string of glossy beads. That's the komboloi. Many take it for a rosary. An understandable mistake, but a mistake nonetheless. The komboloi has nothing to do with prayer. Its religious cousin is called the komboskini, the knotted prayer r

At the end of a Greek meal, the bill rarely comes first – the coffee does. And when you order a Greek coffee at our place, you don't just get a drink. In the end you also get a little riddle: the cup with the grounds at the bottom. Greek coffee isn't filtered. Finely ground powder is boiled directly with water (and sugar, depending on taste) in a small copper pot called a briki – with plenty of foam on top, which is important. It is drunk slowly, in small sips, because in the