Kerasma: The Gift That Isn't on the Bill

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 rarely drunk neat. It was blended with water in the krater, the large mixing vessel, and served to everyone from the shared bowl. Incidentally, the modern word for wine comes from the same mixing: “krasí” originally means nothing other than “mixture.” In time, mixing for the round became treating the round.

The kerasma is never on the menu, never ordered, and has no price. It's not a discount and not a marketing trick, but a gesture, and behind it lies philoxenia, literally “love of the stranger.” It says: today you weren't just customers, you were our guests.

And there's an unwritten rule: you don't like to refuse a kerasma. Not because you have to, but because otherwise you take something from the host – the chance to be hospitable. So whoever accepts also gives something back. A very Greek piece of arithmetic: in the end both are given a gift, and the bill still adds up.

As with coffee, the same applies here: the end of a Greek evening is rarely the end. First something sweet arrives, then a conversation, then perhaps another glass, and at some point, right at the very end, the bill.

What lands on your table at the end of an evening at our place on Arndtstraße, we won't tell. Surprises are part of the kerasma. All we can promise is that you'll sit with us as guests and not as customers. On Tuesday, 29 September – that's in eight days – we're celebrating our Drachmen Fest from 5 pm with live music and prices like 1960. After that we're closed for holidays from 4 to 15 October and back for you on 16 October.

Stin ygeiá mas and see you soon! Your Mastiha Team