A village table

Every Troodos village has one. It is on the square or just off it, under a vine or a tin roof, and the menu is short because the kitchen made three things today. In Kakopetria it will be trout from the river. In Omodos it will be whatever goes with the wine the family makes. In the smaller villages there may not be a menu at all; the owner tells you.

The form is the meze, but the village meze is not the resort version with twenty plates arriving at once. It comes slowly, in the order the kitchen finishes it: olives and bread, then a salad, then halloumi off the grill, then the thing that has been in the oven since the morning — kleftiko, lamb cooked in a sealed clay oven until it falls apart, or a stifado dark with onions and wine. Say when you have had enough. Nobody is counting plates.

When it is at its best

Sunday lunch is when the village itself eats here, and the room is full by one. A Tuesday in November is when the owner has time to talk, and the fire is lit. Both are the real thing. Only one of them has a free table.