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Corfu tastes different from the rest of Greece, and the difference is four hundred years deep. Venice held the island from 1386 to 1797 and never let the Ottomans in, and what it left on the plate is still there: pastitsada, rooster or veal braised with cinnamon and clove and served over thick pasta; sofrito, thin veal cooked down in white wine, garlic and white pepper; and bourdeto, scorpionfish in a paprika-red sauce with more heat than anything on the mainland. You won't find any of the three cooked this way anywhere else in Greece.
The proof is in where Corfiots eat. Rex has been serving pastitsada a few steps from the Liston since 1932. Etrusco, up in Kato Korakiana, holds four FNL stars and two Golden Toques, Greece's own top marks, because Michelin doesn't cover the island. At Taverna Tripa in Kinopiastes, the kantades singers still arrive after the first carafe, and on Agni Bay three fish tavernas share one small cove across the water from Albania.
This guide is Vaggelis's shortlist, field-checked by a certified Greek tourist guide who has eaten his way around the island for years, with data checks by Panos. It covers the Old Town backstreets, the village tavernas worth the drive, and the harbour-front places to walk past. Venice shaped more than the food, and we unpack the rest in our complete guide to Corfu, Greece.
For the full island guide, see our things to do in Corfu. For accommodation, read our where to stay in Corfu and best hotels in Corfu guides.
Quick Answer: Best Corfu Restaurants by Category
- Best creative Corfiot: Etrusco — four FNL stars and two Golden Toques, Kato Korakiana
- Best Old Town dining: Rex — since 1932, the Liston-adjacent institution, pastitsada and sofrito
- Best traditional taverna: Taverna Tripa — Kinopiastes village, live music, a Corfiot institution
- Best seafood: Agni Taverna — Agni Bay, waterfront, the northeast coast's finest
- Best meze: Bellissimo — Old Town backstreets, creative meze, local wine
- Best cheap eat: Pane e Souvlaki — souvlaki and wraps facing the Spianada, Old Town
- Best village lunch: Taverna Oasis — Strinylas, on the road up Mount Pantokrator
What to Eat in Corfu: Dishes You Won't Find Elsewhere
The Corfiot dishes to order. Pastitsada (slow-braised meat with pasta), sofrito (veal in garlic-wine sauce), bourdeto (fish in paprika-tomato sauce), bianco (white fish stew from Vido Island tradition), and noumboulo (cured pork fillet, Corfiot charcuterie). These exist only on Corfu — don't leave without trying at least two.
Tsigareli. A pan of wild and garden greens braised with olive oil, garlic and plenty of hot red pepper, the vegetable dish Corfiots actually eat at home. It turns up as a meze in village tavernas more often than in town.
Kumquat and ginger beer. Try both — they're unique to Corfu. Kumquat liqueur (the tiny citrus fruit grows only here in Greece) is sweet and orange-scented. Tsitsibira (ginger beer) is a British-era legacy that Corfiots still drink. Neither is essential, but both are charming local peculiarities.
Corfu Beer. The island has its own microbrewery, Corfu Beer, brewing in Arillas on the northwest coast. Look for its bottles on menus around the island; it's a better match for bourdeto than a generic lager.
Creative & Fine Dining
Etrusco
The most celebrated restaurant on Corfu — and one of the most respected in all of Greece. Set in the village of Kato Korakiana, about 15 minutes from Corfu Town, in a restored building where the chef creates a tasting menu that draws entirely on Corfiot and Greek ingredients, treated with technique honed in Italy and France. The cooking is precise, seasonal, and deeply rooted in the island's terroir: Corfiot olive oil, local fish, island-raised meat, garden vegetables, and the herbs and greens that grow wild in the olive groves.
Chef Ettore Botrini, Corfiot on one side and Italian on the other, runs the kitchen his family opened, and it holds the highest marks Greece gives: four stars from the FNL guide, two Golden Toques for 2026 and 17 out of 20 from Athinorama. Michelin doesn't cover Corfu, so ignore any site that says otherwise. The room is intimate, the service is personal, and the wine list favours Greek producers with depth and intelligence.
Cuisine: Creative Corfiot-Greek
Price range: €50–80/person (tasting menu)
Best for: Special occasions, serious food enthusiasts, anyone wanting Corfu's most ambitious cooking
Good to know: Reservation essential, days ahead in summer. The tasting menu is the only option and changes with the season. The village location means a car or taxi from Corfu Town. The experience justifies the effort and the price.
The Venetian Well (Kremasti Square)
The Venetian Well, To Venetsiano Pigadi in Greek, takes its name from the old Venetian well in Kremasti Square, one of the quietest small squares in the Old Town. Tables sit out in the square around it, and the kitchen treats Corfiot tradition as a starting point rather than a rulebook, so the island's classics arrive reworked but recognisable. For a romantic dinner in the Old Town, this is the one to book.
Cuisine: Modern Corfiot, creative Greek
Price range: €30–50/person
Best for: Couples, design-conscious diners, anyone wanting creative Corfiot in an atmospheric Old Town setting
Good to know: Reserve for dinner. Kremasti Square is tucked into the Old Town lanes, well away from the noise of the Liston promenade.
Pomo d'Oro (Skaramanga Square)
Chef Megoulas's Old Town restaurant on Skaramanga Square, and the modern Corfiot kitchen Greek food critics rate alongside the Venetian Well. The cooking takes island classics and gives them a lighter, modern hand.
Cuisine: Modern Corfiot
Best for: Food lovers who want Corfiot flavours cooked with a contemporary touch
Good to know: Reserve for summer dinners.
Best Restaurants in Corfu Town (Old Town)
Corfu Town is where most visitors eat most nights, and the Old Town inside it is where the good tables are hidden. These are the places we'd send a friend.
Rex
A Corfu Town institution since 1932 — the restaurant that generations of Corfiots consider the benchmark for traditional island cuisine. Rex sits just off the Liston arcade, serving pastitsada, sofrito, bourdeto, and the full repertoire of Corfiot dishes in a space that feels like a 20th-century European restaurant: white tablecloths, attentive service, a pace that assumes you're not in a hurry.
Rex is not cutting-edge — it's the opposite. The recipes haven't changed because they don't need to. The pastitsada is the version against which all others are measured. The sofrito is silky and correct. The prices are fair for the quality and the location.
Cuisine: Traditional Corfiot
Price range: €18–30/person
Best for: First-time Corfu visitors wanting the definitive island dishes, tradition lovers, the Liston experience
Good to know: Lunch and dinner. The Liston-adjacent location is central but not a tourist trap. The service is old-school in the best sense — professional and unhurried. Cash and card accepted.
Bellissimo
An Old Town backstreet meze restaurant with creative small plates, a well-chosen wine list featuring Corfiot and Greek producers, and an atmosphere that's convivial without being noisy. The cooking takes Corfiot ingredients and applies a light creative hand — nothing radical, just careful, tasty food designed for sharing over wine.
Cuisine: Creative Corfiot meze
Price range: €18–30/person
Best for: Couples, wine lovers, groups wanting to share plates
Good to know: The backstreet location is the charm — away from the Liston crowds. The wine list deserves attention — ask the staff for recommendations. Reserve for summer evenings.
Anthos
A small restaurant in the Old Town lanes with a seasonal menu that reflects what the market and the kitchen garden provide — greens, vegetables, fish, and meat cooked with Corfiot techniques and Italian-Greek sensibility. The space is intimate, the prices are fair, and the cooking is honest and carefully executed.
Cuisine: Seasonal Corfiot-Greek
Price range: €20–35/person
Best for: Foodies, couples, seasonal-eating enthusiasts
Good to know: Small — reserve ahead. The menu changes frequently. Lunch is often the better-value meal.
Rouvas (Corfu Town)
A traditional Corfiot taverna on Stamatiou Desilla in Corfu Town, cooking the island's home food (pastitsada, sofrito, bourdeto) alongside the daily specials Greeks call mayirefta. Go at lunch, when the day's pots are freshest, and ask what the kitchen made that morning.
Cuisine: Traditional Corfiot, daily specials
Best for: A proper Corfiot lunch away from the tourist menus
Good to know: A lunch place first, so check evening hours before you go.
Village Tavernas
Taverna Tripa (Kinopiastes)
A Corfiot institution — a village taverna in Kinopiastes (about 10 minutes from Corfu Town) that has been serving traditional food, pouring local wine, and hosting live Corfiot music for decades. The experience is immersive: long tables, platters of grilled meats and Corfiot specialties, the house wine flowing freely, and musicians playing kantades (the Italianate serenading tradition of the Ionian Islands) as the evening progresses.
Taverna Tripa is not subtle. It's loud, generous, and unashamedly theatrical — but the food is genuinely good (the lamb, the pastitsada, the pies), the atmosphere is infectious, and the experience captures a side of Corfiot culture that the Old Town restaurants can't replicate.
Cuisine: Traditional Corfiot, live music
Price range: €15–25/person
Best for: Groups, families, anyone wanting the full Corfiot taverna experience with live music
Good to know: The live music nights are the main draw — check the schedule. A car or taxi is needed. The experience is communal and social — not for a quiet dinner. The wine is local and generous.
Taverna Oasis (Strinylas)
A village taverna in Strinylas, high on the road up Mount Pantokrator, Corfu's highest peak at 906 metres. The cooking is mountain food (grilled meats, local cheese, hillside greens and village bread), and it is the obvious lunch stop before or after the drive to the top.
The drive up to Strinylas — through olive groves, past abandoned Venetian villas, and along switchbacks with widening views — is part of the experience. The food is the reward.
Cuisine: Mountain Corfiot taverna
Best for: Road-trippers, mountain lovers, anyone wanting Corfu's most honest village cooking
Good to know: The drive from Corfu Town takes about 40 minutes on winding mountain roads. Combine lunch with a drive to the summit of Pantokrator.
Seafood
Agni Taverna (Agni Bay)
A waterfront taverna on the northeast coast in Agni Bay — a tiny inlet with crystal water and a handful of restaurants that have made this cove one of the most celebrated lunch spots on Corfu. Agni Taverna serves fresh fish (priced by weight, grilled simply), seafood meze, and the kind of Greek salads that benefit from being eaten two meters from the water the ingredients were caught in.
The setting is the star: tables on a terrace extending over the pebble beach, turquoise water, and the Albanian coast visible across the strait. The food is excellent and the prices reflect the reputation — fair but not cheap.
Cuisine: Seafood, waterfront
Price range: €25–40/person
Best for: Seafood lovers, romantic lunches, the Corfu northeast coast experience
Good to know: Reachable by car (narrow road) or by boat. Reserve for lunch — it's popular. The setting is the main draw. Priced by weight for fish — ask before ordering.
Toula's Seaside (Agni Bay)
Agni Taverna's neighbour on the same small bay, and the name that turns up most often in Greek restaurant guides. Toula's cooks contemporary Greek food with produce from its own organic garden, and it is known for its bianco, the white Corfiot fish stew with garlic, lemon and black pepper. Book lunch in summer, or arrive by boat and take whichever of the three bay tavernas has a free table.
Cuisine: Contemporary Greek, seafood
Best for: A special lunch on the water
Good to know: Reserve for lunch in July and August. Fish is priced by weight, so ask before ordering.
Taverna Klimataria (Benitses)
A family-run fish taverna in the fishing village of Benitses on the east coast — less polished than Agni but more authentic, with the morning catch grilled or fried and served at tables overlooking the small harbor. The prices are fair, the fish is fresh, and the atmosphere is a working fishing village rather than a curated destination.
Cuisine: Traditional seafood
Price range: €15–25/person
Best for: Budget seafood, authentic fishing-village atmosphere, the east coast
Good to know: Benitses is about 15 minutes south of Corfu Town. The fish selection depends on the morning catch. The fried calamari and grilled octopus are reliable standbys.
Cheap Eats, Street Food and Sweets in Corfu Town
Corfu Town's street food is Greek, not Italian: the Italian accent lives in the braises and the pasta, not in the snacks. The cheap-eat classics are souvlaki and gyros wrapped in pita, pies from the bakeries, and ice cream eaten walking through the kantounia.
Pane e Souvlaki, with tables looking onto the main square, is the easy first stop: skewers, pitas and falafel wraps, served fast.
Bochotis, on Nikiforou Theotoki, is the Old Town's classic pastry and ice-cream shop. Go for the Greek yogurt flavours with honey or cherry.
For breakfast, skip the hotel buffet and pick up a spinach and cheese pie from Starenio, a traditional bakery in the Old Town lanes.
Where to Eat Around Corfu, Area by Area
Corfu is 60 kilometres long, and where you're staying decides where you eat most nights. Here is the short version, area by area. For how the areas themselves compare, see our where to stay in Corfu guide.
Northeast coast: Kalami, Agni and Kassiopi. This is the island's best stretch for eating by the water. In Kalami, The White House is the taverna in the house where Lawrence Durrell lived and wrote Prospero's Cell; book in July and August. Agni Bay has three waterfront tavernas side by side (Toula's, Agni Taverna and Nikolas), and many people arrive by boat. In Kassiopi, the harbour is lined with fish tavernas: walk the whole harbour before choosing, and pick the one where locals are eating.
Southeast: Benitses, Moraitika and Messonghi. Benitses has the best food on this coast, and Klimataria is the fish taverna Greek food guides send people to (see Seafood above). For a better meal than the resort strips in Moraitika and Messonghi, drive up the coast to Benitses.
West coast: Paleokastritsa, Pelekas and Glyfada. Paleokastritsa's waterfront tavernas trade on the view over the coves, and prices follow. For better value, drive up to Lakones, the village above the bay, where tavernas such as Boulis and Panorama look down on the coast. For sunset, the lookout at Kaiser's Throne above Pelekas is the island's classic viewpoint, with a café-restaurant beside it. From Glyfada, Pelekas village is the short drive for dinner.
North: Sidari, Roda, Acharavi and Old Perithia. Sidari and Roda are package-holiday strips, and we don't have a vetted pick in either yet. The honest advice is to drive up to Old Perithia, the island's oldest village at 450 metres, where four tavernas open in summer among the stone houses.
Resort coast north of town: Gouvia, Dassia and Kommeno. Etrusco is a short drive inland at Kato Korakiana. For anything less formal, Corfu Town is close and beats the hotel strips.
Corfu Town with a view. For dinner inside the walls with the sea below you, the Corfu Sailing Club's restaurant sits inside the Old Fortress; book ahead. At Kanoni, Flisvos sits right on the water.
Practical Tips for Eating in Corfu
Old Town strategy. The Liston arcade is for coffee, people-watching, and sunset drinks — not the best food. Walk into the kantounia (backstreet lanes) behind the Liston for the better restaurants. Splantzia square area and the lanes toward the Old Fortress have the most authentic options.
Village tavernas by car. The interior villages — Kinopiastes, Strinylas, Doukades, Makrades — all have tavernas that serve mountain and village cooking at honest prices. Drive through the olive groves (Corfu has an estimated four million olive trees), stop at whatever village appeals, and eat what the kitchen prepared. See our Corfu travel guide for driving routes. There are no buses to most of these villages at lunchtime, so if you haven't got a car already, compare car hire on DiscoverCars for the days you plan to head inland.
When to eat. Lunch: 1–3 PM (village tavernas are best at lunch). Dinner: 8:30 PM–midnight. The Old Town restaurants serve continuously through the afternoon in summer. Village tavernas are lunch destinations.
Vegetarian and vegan. Greek taverna menus are friendlier than they look: ladera (vegetables slow-cooked in olive oil), briam, gigantes beans and tsigareli are all meat-free, and the daily pot dishes often include one. In Corfu Town, Aubergine on Kapodistriou is a vegetarian restaurant with plenty of vegan options.
Food experiences. The quickest way to understand the Venetian-Greek fusion is to eat it with someone who can explain it. We'd book the Corfu Town walking tour with local food tastings on GetYourGuide: three hours through the Old Town with pies, ginger beer, halva, and a sit-down of pastitsada and sofrito.
Getting here from the airport: real prices are in our Corfu Transfer Guide.
Where Not to Eat in Corfu Town
The places to walk past are easy to spot once you know the signs. On the Liston and along the old-port waterfront, avoid anywhere with a photo menu in six languages, a waiter at the door steering you in, or a "traditional Greek" set menu at a flat price. Those kitchens cook for people they will never see again. Have your coffee or sunset drink under the arcades, then walk two or three lanes inland to eat. The rule of thumb that works across the Old Town: if you can't hear Greek at the next table by 9:30 in the evening, keep walking.
Written by
Athens-born engineer · Coordinates a 5-expert Greek team · 50+ years combined field experience
I write every article on this site drawing on real, first-hand expertise — mine and that of four colleagues who live and work across Greece daily: a Peloponnese tour operator, a transfer specialist across Athens, Mykonos & Santorini, a Cretan hotel owner, and a Northern Greece hotel supplier. Nothing here comes from a single visit or desk research.
Informed by 5 Greek experts
Every destination we cover has been visited and vetted by at least one team member — not for a review, but as part of their daily work in Greek tourism.