Elsewhere

Berlin Wall No2: Hole in the Border

Berlin Wall No2 is a rickety wood and plastic-sheeting structure on the pavement right on the Greek-Cypriot side of the “green line,” as the border that divides the Cypriot capital is known. It’s overlooked by guards and is a five-minute stroll from the more stylish eateries in the center of Nicosia’s Old Town. But this little hole-in-the wall serves the best sheftalia we’ve eaten in the city. You could argue about whether these wonderful little nuggets are a form of sausage – what the French would call crepinettes. Two cuts of pork – backfat and loin – are minced, mixed with onions, herbs and seasonings, then encased in caul fat – the membrane that surrounds a pig’s stomach – and grilled over charcoal.

Elsewhere

Apomero: Eyes on the Pies

On our first morning in Nicosia we sat down at a sunlit outdoor table in a picturesque cafe and asked the waiter what Cypriots ate for breakfast. “Pies,” he said, and brought us a selection of savory ones stuffed with olives, cheese and spinach. They came straight from the microwave – grayish-beige, overheated and sodden – and tasted like greasy cardboard. It wasn’t until we discovered Apomero that we realized it didn’t have to be that way. Hidden down a shaded side street in the gentrifying part of the old town, this tiny cafe and pie shop with its small indoor space and jumble of tables and potted plants outside has a much more relaxed feel than its stuffier neighbors.

Elsewhere

Seven St. Georges: Wild Meze for the Soul

Home cooks and high-end restaurateurs alike have taken to hedgerows and beaches to forage for wild herbs and sea vegetables over the past couple of years. But 60-year-old George Demetriades, the larger-than-life owner of Seven St. Georges Tavern, just outside Cyprus’s Paphos, has been serving up incredible meze based on the flora in the woods and fields around the area he grew up in for the past 20 years. “I’ve foraged for food since I was a little boy. That’s how I grew up, as a hunter-gatherer for healthy food,” Demetriades said.

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Peiragmena: Seasonal Food, Tweaked

There’s something about the produce in Cyprus. The tomatoes taste sweeter, the watermelons juicier and the oranges zestier than any we’ve tasted elsewhere. But the domination of local cuisine by the set meze means you’ll sometimes find yourself plowing through another plate of grilled pork, village salad and chips, thinking, “There has to be another way to cook all of this amazing stuff.” Peiragmena does exactly that. “We want to serve whatever’s in season,” said 43-year-old owner Yiannis Katchis. “We use various cooking methods and combinations of flavors, and every three months we change our menu. This is our philosophy.”

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Hamur: Dough Nation

Turkish Cypriot Hülya Çavuşoğlu had always been a good cook but had never thought about making it her profession. That changed in 1995 when, looking for a change, she quit her job in a government office and started a business making and delivering home-cooked food, specializing in mantı, a dumpling found throughout the Turkic world, and börek, stuffed pockets of dough. Business boomed, her husband Ahmed gave up his job as a tailor to do front-of-the-house and they moved to a tiny shop with four tables, naming it Hamur, which means “dough” in Turkish. Located just outside the old walls of Lefkosa, the slice of Cyprus’s capital located in the breakaway northern part of the island, it’s a remarkable little restaurant, serving the freshest of hand-made mantı and börek to everyone from students to diplomats trying to negotiate a settlement between north and south.

Elsewhere

Mattheos: Extra-Slow Food

Cyprus’s tavernas are famous for flame-grilled meat, fish and halloumi cheese, but go to an islander’s home and you’re much more likely to find a pot of something slow-cooked simmering on the stove. Mageireia are traditional Cypriot restaurants serving this comfort food at reasonable prices. We think Mattheos, a tiny family-run lunch place located behind the Faneromenis Church and beside a disused mosque in Old Nicosia’s most picturesque square, is one of the best.

Elsewhere

Tsipouraki Mezedaki: Old Town, New Life

Nicosia’s Old Town grabs your senses in many different ways. You still enter it through 16th-century Venetian walls. Wander its narrow streets and you’ll see architectural shadows of the Ottoman, French and British regimes that have ruled Cyprus over the past 500 years. Turn a random corner and you’ll hit a fierce-looking razor wire and oil drum barrier with an overgrown and abandoned buffer zone beyond, reminding you that this is Europe’s last divided capital, in stasis since 1974, when a short-lived coup aimed at uniting the island with Greece sparked a Turkish invasion of the northern third of the island.