If you ever drive around Mani, even if it is with a detour, you have to stop at Tripleta in Gythio for the best souvlaki you’ll eat ever! Pork, matured kaseri cheese and the signature pitta from Mani – simply delicious.
Anestis Kyrifidis, owner and host, offers the most traditional delicacy you’ll get to taste around Mani in an old quaint joint on one of the city’s alleys. The only thing on the menu? The trio, or else tripleta, of meat, cheese and dough. To die for!
On a hot summer day, we pass by Gythio and stop for a quick break to try this famed spot of Mani. It’s late in the afternoon and the crowd starts to fade as the kitchen stops around 4pm for the afternoon siesta. Thankfully, we’re there just after 3pm and we’re greeted by Anestis and his sons. We ask for a couple of tripletas and two cold beers and take one of the tables across the street. The place inside is like a museum with artefacts from the past -old photos, menus and anecdotes written all over the wall- and lots that remind us the good old days of the traditional coffee joints.
Even though we sit in the shade, the day is a hot one and we order a salad. Salads are not on the menu but one of the waiters swiftly make it to the grocery store next-door and grabs some ripe tomatoes and there you go! Salad a la minute!
We’re served our tripletas and dig in. The pitta is made from Mani’s signature flour and fried to form the perfect crust… oh dear, what a treat! Mani may not be a fertile ground for many vegetables and other flora, but boy do they know a thing or two about grains, flour and pies.
Anestis is on a cheerful mood and talks about how we wants to expand the business to Thessaloniki – a tough calling given the city’s culinary tradition. We exchange numbers with the hope to meet again real soon.
