Where to eat in Corfu

Corfu eats differently from the Aegean islands, and it is not a marketing line. Four centuries of Venetian rule left the island dishes the rest of Greece does not cook: sofrito, pastitsada, bourdeto. Add a French arcade to take coffee under and a local kumquat liqueur in every shop window, and dinner here carries more of the island’s history than the beaches do.

Corfu Town is the island’s kitchen. The kantounia, the tall Venetian alleys between the two fortresses, hold most of the tables worth planning around, from mezedopoleia locals fill on weeknights to the pizzerias the island’s Italian ties made ordinary long before tourism. The pattern the ratings show: the alleys behind the Liston and the Spianada do better than the promenade tables themselves, which sell the view.

The north-east coast eats around Kassiopi’s harbour. The fishing village below the ruined castle is the second real dining base, with tables around the bay and up on the castle side, and it draws people down from the villas and small hotels along that green stretch of coast. It is a drive from town, not a walk, and worth the drive once.

How the places below were chosen. Each card names a real, currently trading place selected by the island’s visitors, not by us: it clears a review-count floor and a rating floor on TripAdvisor or Google, with no contradiction on the other platform, and it carries the date we last checked it. We have not eaten our way around Corfu, so no card describes a dish - it says what kind of place it is, where it is, and that the people who ate there rate it consistently high.

What this page will not do. No prices, which move within a season. And no claim to cover the island: this round stays with the town and the north-east coast, so Paleokastritsa, Sidari and the south are not represented yet, and their tables will come.

Start at Corfu for the island, where to stay in Corfu for the base decision, Corfu Old Town for the lanes the cards sit in, and Greek food and drink for how menus work.