Moustalevria is a flat, pancake-shaped concoction created by boiling the remnants of grapes, after being pressed for their juice, with wood ash. We benefited from their teamwork by dining on spinach pie, fried zucchini blossoms, grilled Formaella cheese, stuffed cabbage, green salads, sausage with green peppers and tomato, lamb chops, rooster fettuccini, and french fries.Īs if this weren’t enough to satisfy our midday cravings, an intriguing Greek dessert topped the meal. While the owner is a wine producer and raises the goats and sheep consumed in the restaurant, his wife creates the actual menu and cooks the traditional Greek dishes. Our lunch at Taverna Kaplanis took the eat-local movement to the ultimate level. Related Articles: Learning Greek History by Eating: One Perfect Day in Athens Melted chocolate swirled in vats as husband and wife owners Thomas and Effie Papasthathis operated the equipment and passed out samples of a tasty, chocolate-covered pistachio, walnut and almond mixture. Our next stop gave us a behind-the-scenes look at the creation of traditional Greek candies and other sweets. Since there is no room for expansion in Arachova and the cheese makers can’t produce it elsewhere and still legally brand it Formaella, they sell the limited output only in Greece. The size of the facility limits annual production to 50,000 units. The Christos family produces the mild Formaella cheese only in Arachova from sheep and goat milk. There was a chill in the late September air when we walked around the town and stopped at a family-run cheese production facility. Today Arachova is often a base for tourists who visit Delphi and athletes who ski Mount Parnassus in winter.

Toward the end of the 1800’s, the town grew when archaeologists excavating the nearby site of ancient Delphi established their operations base here.

Aquarella arachova