Souvlaki and Gyros

Greece; the street food

Souvlaki in Athens. Photo via Wikimedia Commons.

Souvlaki and gyros are Greece's two great street foods, and they are different things. Souvlaki is meat grilled on a skewer: cubes of pork or chicken, charred over coals. Gyros is meat roasted on a vertical spit and shaved off in strips.

Both are wrapped in pita with tomatoes, onions, fries and tzatziki: the pita gyros (or pita souvlaki) eaten standing up or on the move. In Athens the wrap is simply called a pita; elsewhere in Greece, ask for a pita gyros.

Key ingredients

Souvlaki: cubes of pork or chicken, grilled on skewers
Gyros: pork or chicken roasted on a vertical spit, shaved thin
Pita bread, tomatoes, red onion, fries, tzatziki

Where to try it

Souvlaki grills in Monastiraki, Athens, and on every high street in the country.
Eaten standing at the counter or walking; it is the fastest real meal in Greece.
In Thessaloniki and the north, the wrap is bigger and the fries go inside by default.