Greece

  • Greece feels like Italy's closest cousin in the best possible way. The Mediterranean DNA is unmistakable. Incredible fresh ingredients, a culture where meals are long and leisurely and social, hospitality that feels genuine and generous, and a cuisine that at its core is beautifully simple. Olive oil, grilled fish, roasted lamb, fresh vegetables, legumes, and herbs. When Greek food is at its most traditional, it is some of the most naturally allergy-navigable food in Europe. That simplicity is your greatest ally here.

    The language barrier is also fairly non-existent. Most places in Greece especially Athens and tourist centered islands have excellent english proficiency. I never once had to speak Greek and could communicate my allergies in English to staff at restaurants. Greece relies heavily on it’s tourism for it’s economy which is a major reason for this! Keep in mind, this does not mean there english is fluent or perfect, remember to talk slowly or have them repeat what you said to make they are not giving you an empty yes but understand the severity of the situation. Use common phrases in Greek to show appreciation. I stuck to Efcharisto (ef-ahri-sto) which means thank you! Learning thank you in any language shows a kind gesture of respect to the places you visit!

    Athens in particular is one of the most accessible cities in this entire guide. It is a major capital with a vast and diverse restaurant scene, excellent supermarket coverage, strong English proficiency, and world-class hospitals within easy reach. For a first-time international traveler with food allergies, Athens has everything you need to feel safe and supported.

    The islands are a different conversation. Mykonos and Santorini are two of the most beautiful places on earth. They are also smaller, more remote, and more limited when it comes to medical infrastructure and allergy-safe dining options. Mykonos has a clinic that has treated anaphylactic reactions, which is reassuring to know, but reassuring is not the same as comfortable, and the islands are not the place to push your risk tolerance. Dial everything back when you leave the mainland. Be more selective about where you eat, ask more questions, rely more heavily on your packed safe foods, and always know exactly where the nearest medical facility is before you sit down for a meal. There are markets on the Island as well that will have food to purchase as well.

    • Legal framework & labeling: ~8/10 (Greece follows EU allergen law, requiring the 14 major allergens to be disclosed on menus and packaged food — solid foundation, though in practice the consistency of how this is communicated varies significantly between the mainland and the islands).

    • Restaurant flexibility: ~8/10 (Mediterranean cuisine is naturally built around simple, fresh ingredients — olive oil, grilled proteins, vegetables, legumes — which works enormously in your favor. Most dishes are inherently more transparent than heavily processed or sauce-heavy cuisines).

    • Overall allergy understanding: ~8/10 (Greeks are warm, generous, and deeply hospitable — food is at the absolute center of Greek culture and they take pride in feeding you well.

  • Gluten: Pita bread, spanakopita, and pastries made with phyllo dough are everywhere in Greek cuisine. However, the core of the cuisine — grilled meats, fish, salads, dips, and vegetable dishes — is naturally gluten-free in its traditional form. The challenge is preparation: shared fryers, phyllo fragments in shared kitchens, and breadcrumb-coated proteins are the main watch-outs.

      • Dairy: Feta cheese is practically a Greek food group — it appears in salads, pies, stuffed vegetables, and as a standalone dish. Yogurt is another cornerstone. Dairy-free options are less prevalent here than in the UK, so this requires consistent vigilance and clear communication at every meal.

      • Nuts: Greece has a strong nut culture — walnuts, almonds, and pistachios appear in desserts, dips, and salads. Baklava and other traditional sweets are almost always nut-heavy. Always check desserts and any dish with a sauce or stuffing.

      • Eggs & others: Eggs appear in baked goods, some traditional pies, and certain sauces. Seafood is central to Greek cuisine — fish, octopus, calamari, and shellfish dominate coastal and island menus. If seafood is an allergen, be extremely explicit about this on the islands where it is the foundation of most restaurant menus. Cross-contamination from shared fryers and grills is a real concern.Dairy: Butter and cream are foundational to Irish cooking — Ireland is one of the great dairy-producing nations and it shows on every menu. From mashed potatoes finished with butter to cream-based soups and sauces, dairy is everywhere. Ask specifically about every dish.

    • Nuts: Generally well-labeled under EU law. Watch desserts and imported or fusion dishes where nuts appear more frequently.

    • Eggs & others: Eggs show up in baked goods, sauces, and the full Irish breakfast. Shellfish is common along the coast — oysters are almost a national institution, particularly around Galway — and fish is central to coastal menus. Always ask about shared fryer oil.

  • 1. Understanding the "No problem" culture — this is the most important tip in this entire guide. Greeks are warm, confident, and deeply proud of their hospitality. When you explain your allergies, many will respond immediately and enthusiastically with "No problem!" — and they absolutely mean it. The challenge is that some of those responses come from a genuine understanding of what you've asked, and some come from a desire to make you feel welcome before they've fully processed the implications. Both responses sound identical. You cannot tell them apart by tone alone. This is not dishonesty — it is a cultural expression of warmth and the instinct to say yes to a guest. But it means you cannot stop at "No problem." Follow every reassurance with specific preparation questions: How is this cooked? Is it grilled on a shared surface? Does the sauce contain butter or cream? Is there any cheese on this? Are the fries cooked in the same oil as the calamari? The more specific your questions, the more specific the answers become — and that's where you get the real information you need.

    2. Use the simplicity of Mediterranean cuisine to your advantage. The closer a dish is to its most traditional, stripped-back form, the safer it tends to be. A whole grilled fish with lemon and olive oil. Lamb chops off the grill. A Greek salad without the feta. A plate of roasted vegetables. These are dishes with short ingredient lists and minimal processing — which is exactly what you want. The further a dish moves from that simplicity — into stuffed pastries, cream sauces, composite dips, and shared fried platters — the more careful you need to be.

    3. Athens mainland vs the islands — treat them differently. Athens has the infrastructure of a major European capital. Excellent hospitals, a wide range of restaurants, English spoken fluently everywhere, and supermarkets on every block. The islands are beautiful beyond description and absolutely worth visiting — but they require an extra layer of preparation. Know where the nearest clinic is. Carry more safe backup food than you think you need. Be more conservative with your restaurant choices. And never let the beauty of the setting lower your guard about what you're eating.

    4. Know your supermarkets. In Athens, AB Vassilopoulos is the premium supermarket chain with the best allergen-labeled selection and a solid Free From range. Sklavenitis is the largest chain by coverage and carries allergy-friendly products in its bigger stores. My Market and Masoutis are widely available with reliable packaged food labeling under EU law. On the islands, supermarket options are smaller and more limited — stock up on safe staples before you leave Athens or the port town before heading to a more remote part of any island.

    5. Pack food for every excursion outside of Athens. Day trips to ancient sites like Delphi, Cape Sounion, or the Peloponnese, and any time spent away from the main towns on the islands, will put you in environments where safe food is hard or impossible to find. This is Greece — the scenery is extraordinary and you want your full attention on it, not on hunting for something safe to eat in a tourist trap café. Build your packed meal the night before, include plenty of it, and eat it somewhere with a view that most people would pay a fortune to see.

  • Athens is one of those cities that earns every superlative thrown at it. The weight of history here is physical, you feel it standing under the Parthenon, walking through the ancient Agora, turning a corner in the Plaka neighborhood and finding a 2,000-year-old ruin sitting casually between two apartment buildings. It is chaotic and beautiful and endlessly layered, and the food scene matches the energy entirely. Athens has evolved dramatically as a culinary destination over the past decade, the neighborhood of Monastiraki, the streets around Syntagma, the markets of Varvakios — and for an allergy traveler it is one of the most genuinely comfortable cities in this entire guide. Accessible, English-friendly, well-stocked, and backed by the full medical infrastructure of a major European capital.

    Highlights & Must-Dos

    • The Acropolis & Parthenon — non-negotiable. Go early morning before the heat and the crowds arrive. Bring water and safe snacks — you'll be on your feet for hours and the food options at the site itself are limited.

    • Ancient Agora — the marketplace of ancient Athens, less crowded than the Acropolis and arguably more atmospheric for understanding daily life in ancient Greece.

    • Monastiraki Flea Market — a wonderful place to wander, shop, and find street food. Fresh fruit stalls, roasted corn, and simple grilled meat skewers (souvlaki) are among the safer street food options if you can verify preparation.

    • The Plaka neighborhood — the oldest neighborhood in Athens, full of winding streets, outdoor tavernas, and the most beautiful views of the Acropolis lit up at night.

    • Varvakios Central Market — Athens' central food market. An extraordinary sensory experience and a great place to source fresh whole ingredients if you have access to a kitchen.

    • National Archaeological Museum — one of the greatest museums in the world. Free your afternoon and take your time.

    • Syntagma Square & the Changing of the Guard — worth timing your visit around the hourly ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

    • Panathenaic Stadium - this is where the first olympics happened, a 400m track I ran in one go (fun but you will be exhausted at the end). A much more fun way to do this is a little wind sprint.

    • Check Koilon productions and see if they have any shows, when I went they had daily college theatre shows in english, this was one of my favorite moments in Athens, you pay 20 euros or so and go into a small rooftop in the plaka district and watch a greek theatre show. You sit down and they pour you a glass of wine and watch some low budget drama with nothing but absolute heart, soul and amazing vibes!

    Allergy-Specific Guide — Athens

    • Allergy comfort level: High — one of the strongest mainland European cities in this guide for accessibility, infrastructure, and the natural fit between allergy needs and traditional cuisine.

    • What to consider:

      • Mediterranean cuisine is naturally built around simple, transparent ingredients

      • Strong English proficiency across the restaurant and service industry

      • Excellent supermarket coverage — AB Vassilopoulos, Sklavenitis, My Market

      • World-class hospital infrastructure on the mainland

      • Wide range of naturally safe dishes: grilled proteins, horiatiki salad (ask for no feta), roasted vegetables, legume-based dishes like fasolada (white bean soup — ask about preparation)

    • What to watch out for:

      • Mezze-style shared platters — small dishes passed around a table — create cross-contamination risk between items. Be specific about which dishes you're eating and how they were prepared

      • Fried dishes and shared fryers — calamari, tiropita, and other fried items are extremely common and frequently cooked in shared oil with other allergens

      • Dairy in unexpected places — feta and yogurt appear as finishing touches on dishes that don't obviously advertise them on the menu. Always ask

    Restaurants to Consider

    • To avgo tou kokora— Very friendly staff, share simple and safe meat platter with potatoes and vegetables

    • Aerides Plaka— My favorite hand-down. In the hear of the plaka and the owner was such a nice person, took extra precaution and care, assured me of safety and prep mutiple times and had some authentic and traditional lamb, it was clean simple and delicious

    • Grill Hourse Arachova— Friendly restaurant in Monastiraki, they gave me some fresh lamb gyro, usually gyro is contaminated in the U.S or cross-contamination in general with the giant rotating meat skewers. But this restaurant had a safe procedure and was 100% safe, it was delicious

  • Mykonos is one of the most glamorous islands in the Mediterranean — whitewashed cubic buildings stacked on hillsides, windmills overlooking a sapphire sea, narrow marble lanes winding through Mykonos Town (known as Chora) that somehow manage to be both impossibly photogenic and genuinely disorienting to navigate. It is a place of real beauty beneath the international party reputation, and if you spend time away from the main tourist circuit you'll find quieter beaches, family-run tavernas, and an island that rewards the curious traveler. For allergy travelers the key shift here is simple: you are now on a small island, away from mainland infrastructure, and everything needs to be approached with an extra layer of care.

    • Highlights & Must-Dos

      • Mykonos Town (Chora) — get lost in the lanes. Seriously — put the map away and wander. Little Venice along the waterfront at sunset is one of the most beautiful spots in the Aegean.

      • The windmills — the iconic image of the island and genuinely worth the short walk up to them, especially at golden hour.

      • Paradise and Psarou beaches — two of the island's most famous beaches. Bring your own safe snacks for a day at the water.

      • Day trip to Delos — a short boat ride from Mykonos, the island of Delos is one of the most important archaeological sites in Greece. Almost entirely uninhabited, almost entirely extraordinary. Pack a full day's worth of food — there is essentially nothing safe to eat there.

      Allergy-Specific Guide — Mykonos

      • Allergy comfort level: Medium — beautiful island with good restaurant options in the main town, but smaller, more remote, and with limited medical infrastructure compared to Athens. Dial your risk tolerance down noticeably here.

      • Medical note: Mykonos has a clinic that has handled anaphylactic reactions. Know exactly where it is before you sit down for your first meal on the island. This is not optional.

      • I stayed at Aeolos, a short 10-15 minute walk to town but also had a few meals there as staff took my food allergies seriously and could accomdodate!

      • What to consider:

        • Higher-end restaurants in Mykonos Town tend to be well-staffed and more experienced with dietary requests from international guests

        • Simple grilled fish and meat dishes at family-run tavernas are often naturally safe — ask the right preparation questions

        • Supermarkets in the main town for stocking up on safe snacks and backup food

      • What to watch out for:

        • Island kitchens are smaller and more compressed than mainland restaurants — cross-contamination risk is higher across the board

        • Seafood dominates the menus here. If fish or shellfish is an allergen, this requires consistent and specific communication at every meal

        • Tourist-trap restaurants along the main waterfront move quickly and loudly — these are not the environments for careful allergy conversations. Choose quieter, independent spots and visit at off-peak hours

      Restaurants to Consider

      • Pepper— very smart and serious about food allergies. Makes GF pita, fries are in safe fryer and the kebabs are clean meat with nothing on them and they even make very clean and simple sauces. Due to Mykonos’s size and and my risk tolerance I went back here several times because the meal was safe and delicious. I bet there were more places that were safe but Pepper got the job done every meal and I liked the comfort with being on small island that’s more remote.

  • If Mykonos is glamour, Santorini is romance. The caldera views from Oia and Fira — white and blue domed buildings cascading down the cliffside into a volcanic crater filled with some of the deepest blue water you have ever seen — are among the most iconic images in travel for a reason. They are every bit as breathtaking in person as in any photograph. Santorini is the kind of place that makes you want to slow down completely, sit on a terrace with a view, and let the afternoon dissolve around you. From an allergy standpoint it sits in the same category as Mykonos — a smaller island with real beauty, real limitations, and a need for extra preparation and vigilance throughout.

    Highlights & Must-Dos

    • Oia at sunset — one of the most celebrated sunsets in the world. Arrive early and find your spot — the village gets extremely crowded in the final hour before sunset. Bring your own safe snacks and drinks rather than relying on the tourist food stalls.

    • Fira — the island's capital, perched on the caldera rim with extraordinary views and a more varied restaurant and shopping scene than Oia.

    • Akrotiri Archaeological Site — a Minoan Bronze Age settlement preserved under volcanic ash, often called the Pompeii of the Aegean. Genuinely remarkable and much less crowded than the main scenic spots.

    • Red Beach & Perissa Black Sand Beach — two of Santorini's most visually dramatic beaches. Bring your own food — beach-side food stalls are not allergy-friendly territory.

    • Caldera boat trip — a boat tour around the volcanic islands in the caldera, including the hot springs at Nea Kameni, is one of the best ways to experience the scale of the place. Pack food for the day.

    • Hike from Fira to Oia - I woke up at the crack of dawn before it got to hot and embarked on roughly a 6 mile hike that can be done in 2-4 hours. Most of it is done on the coast line and offers stunning views.

    Allergy-Specific Guide — Santorini

    • Allergy comfort level: Medium — same island caveat as Mykonos. Stunning destination, real limitations. Extra preparation required.

    • Medical note: Medical facilities on Santorini are limited. The island has a health centre in Fira, but for anything serious, medical evacuation to the mainland may be required. Know the location of the health centre before your first meal. This is not optional. Santorini does have a larger more modern hospital so I felt more comfortable there if something went wrong then in Mykonos.

    • What to consider:

      • Santorini has a significant number of upscale and fine dining restaurants catering to international visitors — these tend to have better allergen awareness and more careful kitchen practices

      • Fresh, simple taverna food — whole grilled fish, lamb, village salads without feta — can be navigated well with the right questions

      • Local produce is exceptional — Santorini cherry tomatoes, white eggplant, and fava beans are among the finest in Greece and form the basis of some genuinely safe and beautiful dishes

    • What to watch out for:

      • The same island kitchen concerns as Mykonos — smaller spaces, higher cross-contamination risk, seafood dominance

      • High tourist volume in peak season means kitchens are under enormous pressure. Visit at off-peak hours, choose quieter spots away from the main caldera-view restaurant strips, and never rush the allergy conversation

      • Santorini's famous local wines are safe, but the food pairings and tasting menus at wineries can be extremely allergen-dense — always ask for a full breakdown before committing to a set menu

    Restaurants to Consider

    • Rastoni - Incredible owner and prepared staff, amazing steak and unbeatable views of the caldera for sunset. Located in Fira

    • I stayed at the El Greco which was within minutes walking to supermarket in Fira. I had a few meals there and they always made some great grilled chicken and even had DF mashed sweet potatoes that were so tasty. Kitchen manager was on top of it and very flexible.

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