Via Traveling Spoon, my husband and I went to Roustika, Crete, Greece for a four hour cooking class with Ozlem. Our focus was on Turkish and Creten foods. Ozlem and her husband, Demitris, were both charming and funny. We had a great, and beautiful, drive through the mountains to their home, and then back to our hotel in Chora Sfakia.
Our afternoon with Mary was far beyond anything we expected — truly one of the highlights of our entire trip. Mary is a very special person: kind, genuine, and a wonderful host. From the moment she contacted us before the class, she made sure we had all the details we needed to find her home and feel comfortable. Her house itself is beautiful — perched on a scenic cliffside with amazing views — and immediately felt warm and welcoming. She greeted us outside with a big smile, and as my mother said later, “it couldn’t have been a better day.” We started with tea and conversation on her patio, followed by preparing local appetizers (with a little raki, of course!) before moving on to the main meal. The dishes were simple, traditional, and deeply flavorful — but what made it so special was Mary’s passion for Cretan cooking and her deep knowledge of its history and traditions. This isn’t a “restaurant-style” experience. It’s much more personal and real — an afternoon in the home of someone who opens her life to complete strangers and treats them like family. It’s rare to find something this honest and heartfelt anywhere, and we left feeling incredibly grateful. If you’re looking for a genuine local experience — not commercial, not polished for tourists, but warm, intimate, and full of meaning — you won’t find anything better than spending an afternoon with Mary.
In your 3-hour Cretan wine tour and tasting experience, you will enjoy a visit to the family vineyard, a tasting of some of the finest Cretan wines, that will be paired with local ingredients like cheese, herbs, honey and ham. Start your experience at the tasting room with a short video and power point presentation to understand how the Cretan landscape and its grapes affect the wine production. Then drive towards the family vineyard, the field is 5km away from the tasting room and it’s recommended to have a car or van. In the vineyard you will get an opportunity to engage in some of the vineyard work depending on the season – it can be pruning if it’s winter, taking off leaves or branches, or tying branches on the wires if it’s spring or harvesting some grapes if it’s summer. After your short walk in the vineyard, it’s time for the wine tasting! It can either be done in the tasting room or in the vineyard as a picnic under the trees (if you prefer the latter you need to inform Stella in advance, and as it is a picnic you will sit on the ground).
The wine tasting includes 5 wines, which come from different wineries on the island and are made with local grapes. The offered wines can also be chosen according to your preference (white, rosé, red), which again needs to be discussed in advance with Stella and within the budget. You will be given a pencil, a leaflet (which includes information about the Cretan vineyard, the grapes, the way one tastes and appreciates wine aromas and some space to keep the wine tasting notes) and post cards to remember the tasting experience. By tasting different wines (winemaker, style, grapes) it will give you insight to a wide variety of wines that come from Crete. The dishes offered during the wine tasting are local products such as cheese, season fruit, some homemade sauce (bell peppers or tomatoes) served with paximadi (a local rusk), jams, sundried tomatoes and local smoked ham called apaki.
Enjoyed our time with Stella, she showed us food and culture of Chania, and was helpful answering put questions, very enjoyable:
