The best Greek island for food, and why

That sounds like a joke and it is true. He was Sifnian. Ask for a recipe book in Greek and you will be handed a τσελεμεντές, the way an English speaker used to ask for a Hoover.

Most arguments about the best island for food come down to a writer telling you their lunch was good. This one has a name, a birth year, a village, a shelf of books published between 1910 and 1950, and a festival that still runs every September.

Who Tselementes was

Nikolaos Tselementes was born in 1878, in Exambela on Sifnos. He trained in Vienna and cooked in embassies. Then he spent decades writing down what Greek cooking was, at a point when nobody had.

He is credited with the modern versions of moussaka and pastitsio, the two dishes every Greek restaurant outside Greece gets judged on, and with bringing béchamel into Greek home cooking. Greeks still argue about that béchamel, gift or French takeover.

What he published

from 1910

Οδηγός Μαγειρικής | Cooking Guide

1930

Οδηγός Μαγειρικής και Ζαχαροπλαστικής | Cooking and Patisserie Guide

1950

Greek Cookery

You will find different years quoted for "the Tselementes cookbook", because there is no single one. He published across four decades. A cooking guide serialised from 1910, then the bound guide that reached every kitchen, then an English edition in 1950. A page that gives you one date has picked one and dropped the rest.

Biography and publication dates: Wikipedia, citing his published works. Checked 2026-08-23.

Why the food is cooked in clay

2 of the island's signature dishes are cooked in a sealed clay pot, on an island that has been making clay pots for thousands of years. The cooking and the pottery are one tradition.

sifnosFood.dishes.revithada.name

Chickpeas, sealed in a clay pot and left in a low oven overnight. Traditionally the Sunday dish, and many kitchens still only make it on Sundays. It arrives in the pot it cooked in.

sifnosFood.dishes.mastelo.name

Lamb or goat, slow-cooked in a clay pot on a bed of vine shoots, which is where the faint smokiness comes from. The Easter dish.

The pots came first. The dishes were built around what a sealed clay vessel does to an ingredient over eight hours, and you can still buy the pot from the person who made it.

The gastronomy festival in September

Every September, Artemonas hosts the "Nikolaos Tselementes" Cycladic Gastronomy Festival. 3 days, named after him, and the other Cycladic islands send delegations with their own dishes.

Note which way the traffic runs. The other islands come to Sifnos for this one.

Festival name, village and month from visitsifnos.net. Checked 2026-08-23.

What about Crete?

Crete wins. It is a hundred times the size with its own deep culinary tradition, and anyone telling you one small island beats it is selling you something.

Our claim is narrower. If you want a small island where the food is the reason to go, this is the one that can show its working. There are 6 things worth ordering, and a separate page telling you where.

Common questions

Which Greek island is best for food?

For a small island, Sifnos has the strongest claim, and you can check it. Nikolaos Tselementes, born here in 1878, gave modern Greek cooking its written form, and his surname is now the Greek word for a cookbook. If size and range matter more to you than provenance, go to Crete.

Who was Tselementes?

A chef born on Sifnos in 1878, in Exambela. He trained in Vienna, cooked in embassies, and published the cookbooks that standardised modern Greek cooking. He is credited with the modern moussaka and pastitsio.

Why is a cookbook called a tselementes in Greek?

Because his were the ones everybody owned. The surname became the common noun, the way a vacuum cleaner became a hoover in Britain, and it is still the everyday word.

What should I eat on Sifnos?

Revithada if it is a Sunday, since many kitchens make it only then and it sells out by early afternoon. Mastelo if you see it. Both come out of a sealed clay pot.

When is the Sifnos gastronomy festival?

Each September, over 3 days in Artemonas. The other Cycladic islands send delegations to it.

Is Sifnos expensive to eat on?

No more than its neighbours, and less than the islands with airports. These are village tavernas, and the expensive one is rarely the best one.