Cypriot Desserts

If you have a sweet tooth, Cyprus offers plenty of delicious treats to finish your meal or to snack on:

• Baklava: puff pastry filled with nuts and soaked in syrup.

• Daktila (“ladies’ fingers”): finger-shaped strudel pastry filled with a nut-cinnamon mixture and soaked in syrup.

• Glyko tou koutaliou (“spoon sweet”): fruit or walnuts marinated in syrup and served with a glass of water as a welcome titbit for guests.

• Honey: often served with yogurt and almonds or anari.

• Koulourakia: a ring-shaped cookie or rusk biscuit sprinkled with sesame seeds.

• Loukoumades: deep-fried balls of choux pastry served in syrup.

• Loukoumia or Cypriot Delight: a culinary speciality from Yeroskipos, near Pafos consisting of cubes of gelatin served in rose water and dusted with powdered sugar.

• Palouzes: a kind of pudding made from grape juice and flour; it is the basis for soutzoukos.

• Pourekia: deep-fried pastry stuffed with anari, sugar and cinnamon

• Soutzoukos: a long chain of almonds strung together, dunked in palouses and then dried.

Cypriot Drinks

Visitors to Cyprus will find an abundance of both alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages. Coffee is boiled in a little pot with sugar added upon request and poured into a cup together with the steeped coffee grounds. If you like your coffee sweet, then ask for a “glyko”, not very sweet but with some sugar is a “metrio” and if you prefer it black order a “sketo”. 

In addition to beer, a number of excellent wines, local brandies and fruit liqueurs are available.