Corfu cooks unlike the rest of Greece: four centuries of Venetian rule left sofrito, pastitsada and bourdeto on every taverna menu. Three days of market stalls, backstreet kitchens, kumquat distilleries and island wine.
The town's covered market sits in the moat below the New Fortress: fishmongers with gopa, sardines and scorpionfish from the Corfu Channel, plus stalls of salt-cured olives, kumquat, wild greens and local numbulo salami. Open Mon–Sat roughly 07:00–14:30, quiet by noon.
A tiny bakery in the Old Town famous for bougatsa, kumquat pie and a sweet-savoury cheese pie made with local graviera. Everything is baked in small trays through the morning; expect a short queue on the step outside. Coffee is served in paper cups only.
A family kantouni taverna in the alleys behind Agios Spyridon church, cooking the Corfiot canon: sofrito, pastitsada over thick hilopites, bianco with garlic and lemon. Portions are large and the wine comes by the carafe from a barrel in the back room.
Corfu's kumquat industry dates to 1860, when the fruit arrived from East Asia via British botanists. The tasting room pours the orange liqueur, the clear spirit and kumquat spoon sweets, with an explanation of how the fruit is macerated rather than distilled.
A 300-hectare family estate north of Corfu Town growing Kakotrygis, the white Ionian grape whose name means 'difficult to harvest'. Tastings run through the whites, the Petrokoritho red and the estate olive oil, in a courtyard among cypress and olive terraces.
A fish taverna in the old fishing village of Benitses, 12km south of town, run by the Bellos family. There is no fixed menu: the day's catch is carried out on a tray and priced by weight, with marinated anchovies, octopus and taramosalata made in-house.
Corfu carries roughly 3.5 million olive trees, most of them the tall Lianolia variety planted under Venetian subsidy. The mill runs tastings of early-harvest Lianolia oil, explaining polyphenol counts and why Corfiot trees were never pruned low like Cretan ones.
Operating since 1932 in a townhouse just behind the Liston, Rex is where the Corfiot classics are cooked in their formal version: sofrito with sliced potatoes, bourdeto with scorpionfish in red pepper sauce, and pastitsada with rooster rather than veal.
Making ice cream and pastries on the Old Town's main shopping street since 1924. The specialities are kumquat and mandolato sorbet, plus mandolato itself — the Venetian-descended nougat of egg white, honey and almonds sold in wax-paper slabs.
A small mageirio near the Liston where the food sits in trays behind glass and you point at what you want. Lawrence Durrell ate here; the walls still carry his photographs. Stifado, gemista and the daily bean soup are the reliable orders.
One of three tavernas on the pebble cove of Agni, reachable by road or water taxi from Kalami. The kitchen is known for sikomeritha cheese wrapped in vine leaves, lamb kleftiko and grilled sardines eaten with feet almost in the water.
A sixth-floor terrace on a 17th-century Venetian noble house, looking straight over the Spianada to the Old Fortress. The bar list leans on Corfiot ingredients — kumquat sours, tsitsibira ginger beer left over from the British Protectorate, and Ionian wines by the glass.