The best Greek island for food, and why

That is a strange sentence and it is literally true. Ask for a recipe book in Greek and you will be handed a τσελεμεντές, the way an English speaker might once have asked for a Hoover. The word is a man, and the man was Sifnian.

Which makes this an unusually easy question to answer honestly. Most "best island for food" arguments are a writer telling you their lunch was excellent. 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.

The word is a person

Nikolaos Tselementes was born in 1878 in Exambela, a village on Sifnos. He trained in Vienna, cooked in embassies, and then 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 is judged on — and with bringing béchamel into Greek home cooking. Whether that was a gift or a French takeover is still argued about in Greece. Either way, the argument is about a man from this island.

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 isn't one. He published across four decades: a cooking guide serialised from 1910, the bound guide that actually reached every kitchen, and finally an English edition in 1950. Anyone who gives you a single date has picked one and dropped the rest.

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

The pot is the point

The second thing worth knowing is mechanical rather than historical. 2 of the island's signature dishes are not defined by a recipe. They are defined by a sealed clay pot, on an island that has been making clay pots for thousands of years. The food tradition and the ceramics tradition are the same 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.

This is why the island's pottery is not a souvenir industry that grew up alongside the food. 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 Cyclades come here for it

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

The direction of travel is the argument. This is not Sifnos sending a stand to somebody else's food festival. It is the Cyclades' gastronomy festival, and it is held here.

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

What this does not mean

It does not mean Sifnos out-eats Crete. Crete is a hundred times the size with its own deep culinary tradition, and anyone telling you one small island definitively beats it is selling something.

What it means is narrower and more useful: if you want a small island where the food is the reason to go rather than a pleasant side effect, this is the one with the paperwork. There are about 6 things worth ordering and a separate page that tells you where to eat them.

Common questions

Which Greek island is best for food?

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

Who was Tselementes?

A chef born on Sifnos in 1878, in the village of Exambela. He trained in Vienna, cooked in embassies, and published the cookbooks that standardised modern Greek cuisine. 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. 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, which is the thing that makes them Sifnian rather than just Greek.

When is the Sifnos gastronomy festival?

Each September, over 3 days in Artemonas. It is a Cycladic festival rather than a local one: other islands send delegations here.

Is Sifnos expensive to eat on?

No more than its neighbours, and less than the islands with airports. The tavernas are village tavernas rather than resort restaurants, and the good ones are not the expensive ones.