A proper Cypriot meze can turn dinner into the highlight of the trip. Our Cypriot food guide covers the full spread of what to order. You sit down for one meal, then plate after plate arrives, and suddenly two hours have passed and you’ve eaten things you didn’t know were on the menu. The challenge isn’t finding somewhere that does meze — most restaurants in Cyprus offer it. The challenge is finding somewhere that does it properly, where the food is actually cooked rather than assembled, where the halloumi is local rather than generic, and where the evening has genuine character.
What to look for in a good meze restaurant
The external signals that distinguish a good meze restaurant from a tourist-facing one:
- Cypriot families eating there, not just tourists
- A handwritten or printed-in-Greek menu alongside the English one
- A charcoal grill operating — souvla and properly grilled halloumi need charcoal
- No photos on the menu and no tout outside
- Located away from the immediate seafront tourist strip
Price is also a signal: a full meze at a genuinely good village restaurant runs €15–25 per person. If it’s €35+ and you’re on a resort seafront, you’re paying for the location rather than the food.
Best areas for meze in Cyprus
Limassol old town
The streets around Limassol’s old town and the Anexartisias area have the best concentration of serious Cypriot restaurants on the island. The city has a functioning food culture year-round (unlike pure resort towns) and the competition between restaurants keeps quality up. The tavernas around Omonia Square and toward the castle are particularly reliable. Go on a Friday or Saturday evening when the local families are out — the atmosphere is entirely different from Tuesday lunchtime.
The Troodos wine villages
Village tavernas in Omodos, Kilani, and the surrounding Krasochoria villages serve some of the best meze on the island, primarily because they’re cooking for a local clientele that knows what proper Cypriot food should taste like. Booking is essential at weekends — these fill with Limassol families on Sunday. The meze here comes with house wine made in the village itself, which adds a dimension that island resort restaurants can’t replicate.
Around Polis and the Akamas
The village tavernas around Polis in western Cyprus — Drouseia, Pelathousa, the restaurants in Latchi — serve seafood meze alongside meat options and operate in a setting that feels genuinely removed from the resort circuit. Fish meze at a Latchi harbour restaurant the evening after a Lara Beach day is one of those combinations that’s hard to improve on.
Nicosia old town
Nicosia — the capital — has a serious restaurant scene that operates year-round for a local professional clientele. The Laiki Geitonia neighbourhood (the restored old town area) has tourist-facing restaurants, but walk 10 minutes further into the old walled city and the options improve significantly. Nicosia meze tends to have a slightly different character from the coast — more influence from the inland farming tradition, more lamb, more offal dishes for those who want them.
How to order and eat meze properly
You don’t order individual meze dishes — you order meze, and the kitchen decides what comes. Tell the waiter about dietary restrictions or things you don’t eat, but otherwise accept what arrives. The sequence typically runs: cold starters (hummus, tzatziki, olives, taramasalata, village salad, halloumi), hot starters (grilled halloumi, lountza, fried vegetables), then main dishes (grilled meats, kleftiko, souvlaki, stuffed vegetables, fish if at a fish restaurant), then fruit.
Pace yourself through the cold starters — people consistently eat too much early and then struggle with the best dishes. The halloumi and the grilled meats in the second and third phase are usually the highlight. Eat slowly and take your time between rounds; a proper meze is a two to three hour experience, not dinner.
My take: one proper meze changes the whole trip
Visitors who eat meze at a tourist seafront restaurant and then report that Cypriot food was “fine but nothing special” are reporting on the wrong restaurant. One proper village meze — at a place where the charcoal has been going since noon, where the halloumi came from a farm up the road, and where the wine is house-made — reframes the entire trip. It’s worth booking in advance and making a specific journey for it.
People also ask about meze in Cyprus
How much does meze cost in Cyprus?
At a good village restaurant: €15–25 per person including house wine. At a mid-range restaurant in a resort town: €25–35. At a tourist-facing seafront restaurant: €35–50+. The village version is usually significantly better than the expensive tourist version. Book ahead for village restaurants at weekends — they fill with local families and are far busier than their understated appearance suggests.
Is meze vegetarian-friendly?
Partially — meze naturally includes several vegetarian dishes (salads, dips, vegetables, halloumi, grilled vegetable dishes) but the main courses are almost always meat-focused. Tell your waiter you’re vegetarian when ordering; most good restaurants can adjust to bring more vegetable-based dishes and skip the meat courses. Full vegetarian meze is available at some restaurants but is less common than meat-heavy versions.