Γεύσεις εν Λευκώ (Geuseis en Lefko)

8 Piale Pasa Street, Larnaca

24655664

Forget souvlakia, grilled halloumi and tahini - at Γεύσεις εν Λευκώ, you will get to taste the very best in Greek recipes, originating from Thessaloniki and Constantinople.

Just moments away from the sea, the restaurant pays homage to Greece with its strictly blue and white interior and black and white photos of famed movie stars from Greek cinema. The meze kicked off - naturally - with salad, tirokafteri, tzatziki and a delicious paste of aubergine, onion, tomato and spices with lots of Greek pitta bread (the round, flatter kind) for dipping.

Then we moved on to saganaki of feta and juicy tiger prawns, fried feta parcels and two kinds of keftedes, with melted cheese and fried courgette. There was also a Salonican dish called Strabatsata - a Greek version of bubble and squeak - which included spicy sausage, onion and tomato together with fried egg.

For meats, the owner Panicos presented us with one of the restaurant's signature dishes - the pork kotsi, a fatty but incredibly tasty piece of meat served on the bone which we all tucked into. There was also lamb burgers or yiaourtloukebab as they're called - this is a Turkish-inspired dish of lamb mince meat and spices, topped with tomato sauce and mint yoghurt which was my favourite of all. We finished off with thin pork fillets, or 'pancetta', marinaded in red wine, all served with thinly sliced fried potatoes.

Just when we thought the feast was over, Panicos served "kazan dipi" (καζάν ντιπί), a gorgeous creamy dish (bit like panacotta) with a thin brown layer of burnt sugar on the top (pictured above). According to legend, hundreds of years ago, a young lady burnt the cream, leaving a hard, dark layer on the dish, hence the name of the dessert. And no meze is complete without a digestive drink and nothing could be more fitting than the Masticha liquer, served chilled in cute individual bottles. A series of dishes that are very Mediterranean but also refreshingly different from the norm.

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