How to Stop Shopping Like a Tourist

For the first year, most people who move here shop the way they did on holiday: the nearest supermarket, the nearest fishmonger, the occasional farmers market on a Saturday because it is charming. The food is fine. It is also not the food the good kitchens are cooking with, and the gap is larger than anyone tells you.

The structural fact

Greek food supply is short-chain and relationship-based to an unusual degree. A great deal of the best produce, fish and cheese never enters organised retail at all: it moves from a producer to a small number of buyers who have an established account, and it is gone by mid-morning.

This is not gatekeeping. It is a supply chain built for restaurants and for households who buy consistently, and it has simply never needed a retail front end. Getting into it requires behaving like the customers it was built for.

Fish, which is where the difference is starkest

The single most useful thing to understand is the distinction between what came in this morning and what is available. A good fishmonger will tell you both, unprompted, and will steer you away from something that is technically fine but not good today.

The test is simple and it works everywhere: ask what came in this morning and then ask what you should not buy today. A supplier who answers the second question honestly is the one to build a relationship with. A supplier who says everything is excellent is selling you inventory.

Ask what not to buy today. The answer tells you everything about who you are dealing with.

How an account actually starts

• Go early, repeatedly, and buy small. Consistency is the currency. A household that appears weekly for two months is worth more to a supplier than one large order from a stranger.
• Buy what is good rather than what you planned. Turning up with a fixed list marks you as retail; asking what is worth having marks you as a customer worth keeping.
• Learn a hundred words of Greek. This changes the interaction more than any amount of money does, and it is the single highest-return effort available to a new arrival.
• Ask to be introduced. If you have found one good supplier, ask them who they use for the things they do not sell. The trades know each other and are generally honest.
• Pay promptly and in full. Obvious, and yet.

The things worth setting up properly

Three accounts are worth more than twenty casual relationships: fish, produce, and a merchant for wine and pantry imports. Beyond that, a household that entertains will eventually want a butcher who will hold and age, which is a longer relationship still.

If you employ someone to cook, they will have their own chain and it will be better than yours. The mistake is inserting yourself into it. Ask them to introduce you rather than replacing their suppliers with your discoveries.

And the seasonal warning that applies to everything on this coast: August thins out supply as well as service. The best of it goes to the accounts that have been buying all year.