O Foros, Old Perithia

A village that emptied out, and the square that did not

Old Perithia sits at about 650m on the northern slopes of Mount Pantokrator, and it is the oldest surviving village on Corfu. It was built inland and out of sight of the water, which is what you did on this coast when pirates were the reason you chose where to live. At its height it held around 130 Venetian-era stone houses and eight churches.

Then the twentieth century took it. Families moved down to the coast where the tourists and the money were, and the village was left to the goats and the weather. It is being slowly restored now, and a handful of tavernas work off the old square.

O Foros is the one in the corner. The name is not decoration: foros comes from the Venetian forum, the square where a village did its arguing and its trading. The taverna is named after the ground it stands on.

The room

You eat on gravel. The tables are laid with white cloths over red gingham, there is a fig vine over the pergola, and bare bulbs come on as the light goes. Two hand-painted street signs flank the kitchen door as a joke: Ouzo street on one side, οδός Ρακί on the other. A guitar hangs on the wall behind the counter next to the ice cream freezer.

It is run by Thomas and Vaso Siriotis. Thomas hosts and hand-illustrates the menus; Vaso cooks. Rick Stein filmed here in 2007 for the BBC and, unusually, it does not seem to have ruined the place. Nobody rushed us, and nobody performed anything.

What we ate

Two people, one long evening in July 2026. Two shots of raki arrived before we had ordered anything, which is the local welcome and not something you ask for.

• Raki, two shotscomplimentary

  Brought to the table on arrival, before the menus.

• Dolmades€8.50

  Vine leaves stuffed with rice and herbs. Cold, lemony, the right way to start.

• Greek zucchini balls€7.00

  Fried balls of grated zucchini, feta and fresh herbs. Order these.

• Moussaka€13.00

  Layers of mince and aubergine under a proper lid of bechamel, browned and grated over with cheese.

• Lamb chops, 1kg€35.00

  Marinated in olive oil, lemon and oregano, grilled over coals, sold by the kilo and served with chips and salad. The reason to come.

• House white wine, 500ml carafe€7.00

  Cold, easy, and poured from a jug rather than a bottle.

• Karydopita (Greek walnut cake)€4.00

  The dessert to order. Spiced, dense, syruped with the family’s own honey.

That comes to about €74.50 for two at menu prices, before bread and any cover. We are quoting the menu rather than our receipt, so treat it as the shape of the bill and not the bill itself.

The menu

The taverna prints its menu in English and writes the prices in by hand. We photographed it, so this is the real list rather than a version scraped from a booking site. A few handwritten prices were not legible and are left blank on purpose.

Prices in euros, photographed from the menu in July 2026. Small tavernas change prices by season and by year, so use these to plan, not to argue at the till.

The photographs