Souvlaki

Souvlaki is a Greek dish made from small chunks of meat—and occasionally vegetables—cooked on a skewer over a grill. It’s typically eaten right off the skewer while still hot. It may be served on its own or wrapped in a rolled pita, often accompanied by lemon, sauces, sliced tomatoes and onions, and fried potatoes on the side. In Greece and Cyprus, pork is the most common meat used.

The name comes from the Medieval Greek word soúvla (meaning "skewer"), which itself was borrowed from the Latin subula. Souvlaki is the diminutive form. In northern Greece, especially Macedonia, the term souvlaki is standard, while in southern Greece and around Athens, the same dish is often called kalamaki, meaning "small reed" or "little straw."

Cooking meat on spits or skewers has deep roots in Greek culture, going back to the Bronze Age. Stone cooking supports found on Santorini, dating to before the volcanic eruption of the 17th century BC, show pairs of indentations likely used to hold skewers, with holes in the base to let air reach the coals. In Mycenaean Greece, rectangular ceramic pans known as "souvlaki trays" or portable grills were discovered at sites like Gla, Mycenae, and Pylos. These pans sat under skewers of meat and may have been placed over a fire or used to hold hot coals like a barbecue pit. Similar spit supports continued into the Early Iron Age at Nichoria. In Greek literature, Homer’s Iliad mentions pieces of meat roasted on spits, and later writers like Aristophanes, Xenophon, and Aristotle also refer to this practice. In Classical Greece, a small skewer was called an obelískos, and Aristophanes describes using such skewers to roast thrushes. During the Byzantine Empire, the Prodromic Poems mention "hot meat shops" in Constantinople selling spit-roasted meat slices similar to souvlaki, known as psenasis souglitarea.

Modern souvlaki was noted by the French traveler Gustave Flaubert, who in 1850 saw Greeks grilling meat on bamboo sticks in the Boeotian countryside. However, it didn’t become widely available in Greece until after World War II. It started being sold as fast food in the 1960s, introduced by vendors from Boeotia. The first recorded use of the word souvlaki in English was in 1942.

There are several variations. In Athens, kalamaki is a synonym for souvlaki itself, though the word souvlaki there is often used for any kind of pita wrap. Kalamaki can include tomatoes, peppers, onions, and a sauce, with lemon wedges. In places like Thessaloniki, kalamaki is not linked to souvlaki at all; there, souvlaki refers to what Athenians call kalamaki.

A merída (meaning "portion") is a full plate of souvlaki, served with fried potatoes, vegetables, sauce, and quartered pita bread. It’s essentially the ingredients of a souvlaki-pita arranged on a plate. Pork is most common, but chicken or lamb are also used.

A souvlaki-pita consists of grilled souvlaki meat folded into a lightly grilled pita, along with sliced tomatoes, onions, and tzatziki sauce, with fried potatoes on the side—though potatoes are increasingly added inside the pita. This style is especially common at Greek-Australian eateries in Melbourne. When chicken replaces pork, tzatziki and onions are often swapped for a yellow mustard sauce and lettuce. Other possible garnishes include ktipiti, Russian salad, and melitzanosalata.

On the island of Corfu, a special tomato sauce called "red sauce" is added to souvlaki.

In Cyprus, souvlaki can refer both to the meat chunks on a skewer and to the dish itself. It uses a large pita with a pocket-style opening, filled with meat—traditionally lamb or pork, but also sheftalia or chicken—cut into slightly larger pieces. Common salad additions include tomatoes, cucumbers, and shredded white cabbage. Onion, parsley, and pickled green chili peppers are frequent accompaniments, along with yogurt or tzatziki.