The Greek Kitchen — Local services in Athens

This was an INCREDIBLE experience. We did the 4 hour cooking class with the walk around the central market. Honestly one of the main highlights of our whole trip to Greece. We loved walking around the market and seeing a less touristy part of Athens, where the locals shop! It was fun to see Vasia interact with the vendors because you could tell she was old friends with all of them. Also it was great to see where the ingredients that we were going to cook with came from. The phyllo dough we used to make the spanakopita as even homemade! Vasia is hilarious. She has a sarcastic and sassy attitude that is really charming and she is able to break the ice very easily. Her personality definitely made the cooking experience even more memorable and fun. She is a hoot! She was great teacher as well. The recipes were easy to follow. The food turned out absolutely delicious. My favorite was the stuffed eggplant and the orange cake. I loved hearing the reasoning and stories behind the recipes and ingredients. She gave us suggestions for what brands of greek yogurt to buy when we returned back to the USA if we wanted to recreate the recipes. Vasia had the unique ability to be engaging and funny with the group as a whole, while also coming over and chatting with you individually and be fully immersed in conversation with you. I was impressed because she could remember small tidbits about you specifically that you mentioned earlier in the class and then talk with you about those things. It was a group of 15 or so, I was impressed with her memory. It was worth every penny and I will definitely be making those recipes...

Fun! There are different cooking instructors and we had Thanos. He was fun and helped us prepare delicious food. Thanos instructed us step by step while telling us about the local ingredients. Thanos asked us about dietary restrictions, and I thought it was very considerate, as we had vegetarians in our group. It was very hands on, and we felt the food was very authentic and delicious. The trip to the local market was quick (about 10 minutes) and educational. This was important to me, as it differed from other tours where you are walking aimlessly to pre-selected vendors before you get to do anything in the kitchen. At the end our group sat down and ate the food we made all together. My only suggestion would be to let us eat appetizers or snacks in between all the cooking. We did get strawberries before we went to the market, but we were starving after all our cooking. At the end we were very full and satisfied with our meal - we even had left overs that we took with us. ...

Last week we were in Greece with a group that came to The Greek Kitchen in the morning to make a meal. It was one of the most interesting and joyful experiences in our Greece trip! Second only to The Parthenon and our cruise to 3 islands on the gorgeous blue waters surrounding your lovely country!

The two gentlemen that taught our class were outstanding, They were great teachers, friendly, knowledgeable, and most amusing at times - they were an absolute delight to learn Greek cooking from that day. We appreciated the walk through the market including the fish and meat sections as well.

We came to your website today for the recipes and were happy to see other recipes too! We plan to make dolmades, tzatziki, spanakopita, and portokalopita for our families soon. Our cooking instructors gave us the confidence to do this at home, back in the USA.

Thank you, Thank you, Thank you for the wonderful gift of recipes, experience and...