By Lisa Radinovsky from Greek Liquid Gold
Traditional Cretan food comes directly from farm to table for an authentic slow food experience at Dounias Taverna. Dounias offers a perfect marriage of agrotourism (or agritourism) and food tourism in a scenic, rustic setting. At this traditional Greek taverna, dishes from the Cretan diet revive the flavors of a time when Greeks lived closer to the land.
The first time we looked for Dounias Taverna, or Ntounias* Traditional Gastronomic Center of Cretan Food, we didn’t find it. It is located in the village of Drakona, 19 km from Chania, Greece. With Drakona situated 525 meters above sea level, we need about an hour to wind through hairpin curves in the foothills of the White Mountains of Crete to reach it. The narrow roads may challenge some drivers, but passengers can enjoy spectacular views of silvery-green olive groves descending valleys and extending toward bare peaks. In that grand landscape, Dounias is so unassuming that you can miss it (as we did) at one of many sharp bends in the road.
Keep your eyes open for several small wood fires burning beneath clay pots, a frying pan, and a small domed oven on a covered outdoor platform. This—and the woodpiles—are the taverna’s most distinctive features. The modest red-tiled, cream-colored building with dark green doors and solar panels covering most of the roof is less striking. Inside, exposed wooden beams hold up the ceiling, and large windows let natural light into the two rooms that are packed with customers on winter weekends. A pleasant, elevated outdoor seating area across the road offers cool breezes and views of the landscape in the summer. (Six steps with railings lead up to it; a sturdy wooden roof protects some of the tables, while a green tarp is spread above the others.)
Wood fires and a farm visit: Traditional Cretan food at Dounias when our children were small
Cooking over the wood fires’ open flames outside the taverna building, potato chunks sizzle in a blackened frying pan of bubbling olive oil, and greens boil in a large pot of water. Steam escapes from covered ceramic pots as thick local sausages meld with whole green peppers. The flickering orange firelight can mesmerize visitors, but the owners stay on their toes. Stelios Trilyrakis hurries over to turn the sausages, stir a full pot, check on the potatoes, and add more greens to boil.
When we first encountered Dounias over a decade ago, the outdoor cooking area had not yet been set up. Instead of looking at a menu, we were invited into the kitchen to see the wood-burning oven and clay pots full of fresh food there. After we’d filled our stomachs with a variety of dishes based on fresh local produce and meats that were either from the owners’ farm or locally sourced, Stelios brought out several extra dishes for us to try.
As my husband attempted to do justice to that wealth of flavor, Stelios and his wife Emorfili Onoufriadi urged one of their young children to escort me and my small kids on a tour of their farm. We wandered along dirt paths on the hillside below their restaurant, visiting the family’s rabbits, pigs, chickens, and a cow. We had driven past some of their rare brown cattle—Cretan Gidomouskara (meaning “goat’s beef,” given their goat-like feet)–on the way into the village.
Growing fame: Dounias welcomes slow food tourism and agrotourism visits today
With the motto “slow food and agritourism,” Dounias now offers pre-planned educational farm experiences that can include vegetable picking, gathering wild plants, milking, cheese production, and traditional Cretan cooking lessons, as well as visits to small-scale, family-owned enterprises such as a vineyard, a winery, and beehives in nearby villages. Apartments are also available for rent next to their restaurant.
In the past, after they had become too busy to invite customers into the kitchen to order food, Stelios would quickly explain the offerings of the day from memory–and tell us when we’d ordered enough. Now there are official menus, logos on their aprons, paper placemats showing their clay pots, brochures, and a website in six languages. Musicians sitting around one of the small, square wooden tables next to our group one Saturday in September played Greek tunes by Theodorakis and Hatzidakis on a classical guitar, an accordion, and a beautiful bouzouki.
Dounias has been featured in a New York Times article about The 25 Travel Experiences You Must Have, a Greece Is piece about the culinary riches of Chania, and a Saveur essay on the cheeses of Crete. This traditional Greek taverna has been widely recognized, both within Greece and abroad, for its owners’ dedication to the traditional Cretan version of the famously healthy Mediterranean diet and lifestyle.
Tastes of the past: “our grandmothers’ recipes” for high quality traditional Cretan food
Stelios and Emorfili used to work as cooks in city restaurants, but that showed them that “our food culture had lost its way,” as Stelios says in a video on their website. So they “decided our mission would be to show our friends our grandmothers’ recipes.” They left the city and opened up the taverna surrounded by a farm where they “use what we grow, just like my grandmother did” and “show people how we cook without electricity, in earthenware, using fresh, seasonal produce” straight from nature.
Even as its international fame continues to grow, Dounias continues to live up to their motto of “slow food and high quality.” We recently enjoyed a spectacular Cretan salad with mizithra cheese, beets, greens, potatoes, carrots, rusk, peppers, onions, and corn; coarse homemade wholegrain bread with olives, oregano, and olive oil; savory vegetarian dishes where the ingredients blended perfectly in slow-cooked sauces; plus local meats baked in the wood-burning oven. In addition to a favorite green bean stew, a savory eggplant dish had me—who doesn’t care for eggplant—coming back for more.
My husband thought I offended Stelios once by asking if the potatoes were fried in olive oil. Of course they were; what else? The restaurant earned the Quality Label of Cretan Cuisine, which required an exclusive use of extra virgin and virgin olive oil in cooking, including deep frying. Two ancient olive trees near the taverna signal the importance of this key feature of the time-tested traditions of the Cretan diet.
*In the Greek alphabet, N and T together make the “D” sound, although this is not usually transliterated as NT, but as D. The Greek word ντουνιάς (ntounias) is a poetic term for “world” or “earth” that may be used to emphasize vastness.
*Originally published on Greek Liquid Gold: Authentic Extra Virgin Olive Oil (greekliquidgold.com). See that site for recipes with olive oil, photos from Greece, agrotourism and food tourism suggestions, and olive oil news and information.
