Kiriakou on Greek and Cypriot food records the comparison John Kiriakou drew between the two cuisines while in Cyprus in 2026, ten days into a stay on which he says he ate only Cypriot food.[1]
The cheeses
His judgement, offered as something that would “sound silly”, is that the cheeses of Cyprus are “so much more sophisticated” and more subtle than those of Greece.[2] The distinction he draws is structural rather than a matter of quality. In Greece there is feta at every meal, alongside kasseri, kefalotyri and kefalograviera, “but most of them are variations on each other.” In Cyprus, for reasons he says he cannot explain, “each cheese stands independently by itself” — one nutty, one tasting of pine, one to be eaten with honey, and halloumi as “the flagship of all the cheeses.” He put his own count that week at twenty different Cypriot cheeses.[3]
On halloumi he adds a note on availability in the United States: until about five years earlier it could be found only in a specialty cheese shop or at Whole Foods, and sometimes at a Greek grocery — the aside being that “most of the Greek stores are not owned by Greeks. They’re owned by Egyptians,” who bring in Egyptian products alongside. It is now sold everywhere, and he buys it constantly. The Cypriot version is saltier than the American, and he prefers it.[4][5] Asked to choose between feta and halloumi he took halloumi; between tzatziki and tirokafteri, tzatziki; between gyros and souvlaki, gyros. He had eaten sheftalia earlier the same week.[6]
Coffee
Kiriakou takes freddo cappuccino over freddo espresso, on a volume argument rather than a flavour one: he drinks so much coffee that the added milk simply means more of it.[6][7] He shares his interviewer’s objection to the standard straw, which is too narrow to draw the drink up properly, and so does not use one.[8]
He was a frappé drinker — “frappé metrio”, and never at breakfast — until a visit to Rhodes with his son, where his cousin Christo asked him why he drank it and answered his own question: it is Nescafé, and therefore bad coffee. Kiriakou switched, and concedes the point: the freddo is higher quality because the beans are ground rather than poured from a tin. “He was right.”[9][10]
He also claims a reading habit on the subject, saying he goes through the whole of any new coffee study that appears.[11]