Antoniou Traditional Bakery

Bread from an 1853 oven

On one of the lanes below the castle in Chora, bread and pastries sit in baskets on lace-edged cloths in a wide open window: this is the Antoniou family bakery. In 1853 the great-grandmother of today's owners kept an oven here where the village baked its bread; when refugees from Asia Minor arrived in 1922 it became a proper bakery. Since 1998 the house and bakery have been a protected historical monument, still doing exactly what they always did.

The dough is made from local flour and sourdough, kneaded by hand in a wooden trough and baked in a three-metre stone oven fired with olive wood. Besides round loaves there are sesame rings, cheese, olive and raisin buns, cheese and trahanas pies and peinirli. Look for gourgi, rusks made with a chickpea starter that take up to 33 hours to prepare and keep for a year.

Opening

Usually from the second half of June to early September, until about 1 pm. Bread is limited, so come in the morning.