What to eat in Skiathos

Layered aubergine, spiced minced lamb or beef and potato under a thick béchamel, baked until the top sets golden. The dish everyone knows, and the one most often done badly for tourists — a good one is dense and rich rather than watery.

It is a lunch dish as much as a dinner one, and it is usually cooked in a tray in the morning. Ordering it at 11pm is not the way to meet it at its best.

Small cubes of pork or chicken grilled on a skewer. In most of Greece souvlaki means the skewer itself; ask for it 'in a pita' and you get the wrap.

The cheapest genuinely good meal on the island, and the one locals eat most.

Meat stacked on a vertical rotisserie, shaved off as it cooks, wrapped in pita with tomato, onion, tzatziki and — this surprises visitors — chips inside the wrap.

€3–4.50 and it is a full meal. The chips belong in there; do not ask for them to be left out.

Lamb slow-cooked for hours, traditionally sealed in a parcel or a clay pot with garlic, lemon and oregano until it falls off the bone. The name means 'stolen' — bandit food, cooked buried in a pit so the smoke would not give the thieves away.

Often needs ordering in advance at smaller tavernas, because it takes half a day.

Strictly the name of the small two-handled pan, not the dish. Usually means fried cheese; 'shrimp saganaki' is prawns in a tomato and feta sauce, which is a different thing entirely and one of the best plates on any Greek menu.

If a menu just says 'saganaki', it is the cheese.

Tenderised, often sun-dried on a line by the harbour, then charred over coals and dressed with oil, vinegar and oregano. The single most Aegean thing you can order.

If you see octopus hanging on a line outside a taverna, that is not decoration — it is that day's stock, and it is a good sign.

Squid, either floured and fried in rings or — better, and more common in a serious fish taverna — grilled whole and cut at the table.

Frozen rings and fresh grilled squid are barely the same food. If it is on the menu grilled, order it grilled.

Tomato, cucumber, onion, pepper, olives, oregano and a slab of feta on top. Note the Greek name means 'village salad' — there is no lettuce in it, and a version with lettuce is a version for tourists.

One between two is plenty, and the leftover oil and tomato juice is meant to be mopped with bread.

Strained yoghurt with cucumber, garlic and oil. Served cold, as a dip and as a counterweight to grilled meat.

It should taste aggressively of garlic. If it does not, it was made for visitors.

Vine leaves rolled around rice, herbs and sometimes mince. Served warm with lemon and egg sauce, or cold with oil.

A test of a kitchen — the good ones are rolled by hand that morning and the difference is obvious.

Spinach and feta in filo pastry. A bakery item as much as a taverna one, and the standard Greek breakfast-on-the-move.

Buy it from a bakery in the morning, not from a restaurant at night.

Not broad beans — split yellow peas, slow-cooked to a purée and served warm with raw onion, capers and a hard pour of olive oil.

One of the cheapest things on the menu and one of the best. Order it with bread and let it be lunch.

Meatballs with bread, herbs and often mint, fried rather than baked.

The mint is the point. If they taste like Italian meatballs, something has been lost in translation.

A slow stew — beef, rabbit or occasionally octopus — with a great many small whole onions, red wine, cinnamon and bay.

A winter dish that persists on summer menus. Order it on a cool evening and it makes far more sense.

Tomatoes and peppers hollowed out, stuffed with rice and herbs, and baked in oil until they collapse slightly. Usually served warm rather than hot, which is correct and not a mistake.

A genuinely good vegetarian main, and one of the few that is not an afterthought.

Small yeasted doughnuts, fried and drowned in honey and cinnamon, sometimes with walnuts.

Late-night food. They are made to order and should arrive too hot to eat.