Meze 101: How to Start a Greek Meal the La Casa Ouzeria Way
La Casa Ouzeria’s Meze Platter brings together a selection of Greek favourites made for sharing around the table.
There is something wonderfully Greek about sitting down at a table and realizing that the first decision isn’t what you are going to order.
It’s what we’re going to share.
That’s the spirit behind mezedes, the small plates and appetizers that have long been part of Greek dining. A little cheese. Something from the sea. Warm pita and spreads. Perhaps dolmades or crisp phyllo pastry. The plates arrive, everyone reaches in, conversation starts, and before long the meal has become something shared.
At La Casa Ouzeria, that way of eating feels particularly at home.
For more than 30 years, the Portalaki family has welcomed Penticton diners with a style of hospitality rooted in the family’s Greek heritage and the traditions they brought with them from Crete. The restaurant’s philosophy has always centred around food, family and the table as a place to gather.
So, if you’ve ever opened the La Casa Ouzeria menu, arrived at the Mezedes section and wondered where to begin, consider this your guide.
First, What Are Mezedes?
Meze refers to the small dishes served throughout Greece and other parts of the eastern Mediterranean, often enjoyed communally rather than as individual courses.
There isn’t one prescribed combination. That’s part of the appeal.
A meze table can bring together contrasting flavours and textures: creamy spreads, salty olives and feta, crisp pastry, seafood, grilled or baked meats and cheese. At acclaimed Greek restaurants today, that same tradition continues through combinations of dishes such as saganaki, calamari, Greek meatballs, cheese pies, olives, tarama and other spreads.
The important part isn’t following a formula. It’s putting several things in the middle of the table and enjoying them together.
And La Casa Ouzeria gives you plenty to work with.
Start With the Spreads
If you want to ease into the meal, begin with pita and a selection of La Casa Ouzeria’s spreads.
The menu offers tzatziki, homous and taramousalata, available individually or as a combination.
Tzatziki brings the familiar cool, creamy character of yogurt. Homous adds something richer and earthier from chickpeas, while taramousalata brings a distinctly Greek savoury flavour from fish roe.
Order two or three, add pita, put everything in the middle of the table and start sharing.
It’s simple, relaxed and exactly the kind of beginning that gives everyone time to settle in before the rest of the meal arrives.
A selection of La Casa Ouzeria’s Greek spreads, perfect for sharing at the start of the meal.
Add Something From the Sea
Next, bring a little seafood to the table.
La Casa Ouzeria’s Kalamari is flash-fried and served with tzatziki, while the Garlic Prawns feature black tiger prawns pan-fried with garlic butter, white wine and lemon. There’s also Uvetsi, combining black tiger prawns and baby shrimp with feta in a baked tomato-wine sauce.
These are particularly good meze choices because they’re naturally shareable. Put a plate in the middle and let everyone have a taste.
Kalamari is also one of the dishes La Casa Ouzeria itself recommends as a way to begin the meal. In the restaurant’s earlier guide to its signature dishes, it was described as a consistent guest favourite and included alongside Greek salad and spanakopita in the owners’ suggested way to start a La Casa experience.
Don’t Skip the Phyllo
Few things say Greek table quite like golden, flaky phyllo.
At La Casa Ouzeria, you have two excellent choices.
Spanakopita combines crisp phyllo pastry with fresh baby spinach and feta and is served with tzatziki. Tiropita takes the cheese route, filling flaky phyllo with ricotta, Parmesan and feta.
Order one, or better yet, order both.
The crisp pastry and warm filling provide a completely different texture from the spreads and seafood, which is part of what makes a table of mezedes so enjoyable. You aren’t eating variations of the same appetizer. You’re moving from one flavour and texture to another.
Try a Dish With a Family Connection
For something that connects the meze table directly to La Casa Ouzeria’s story, order the Dolmades.
We prepare them with ground beef and rice stuffed inside organic grape leaves and serve them with lemon cream.
They’re more than simply another item on the menu.
The Portalaki family’s story traces the dish back to Crete, where founder Jackie Portalaki learned to make dolmades alongside her own mother. That family cooking tradition eventually travelled from Greece to Penticton and became part of the food served at La Casa Ouzeria.
That makes dolmades particularly fitting on a La Casa Ouzeria meze table. You’re not simply trying a Greek dish. You’re tasting something connected to the family’s own history.
And Then There’s Saganaki
If you’re looking for a classic Greek cheese dish, Saganaki deserves a place on the table.
La Casa Ouzeria prepares it with Cretan kefalograviera cheese, pan-fried and finished with fresh lemon. The restaurant’s menu calls it simply “a Greek classic.”
Kefalograviera is particularly appropriate given La Casa’s Cretan roots, and the combination of warm cheese and fresh lemon adds another distinctive element to a table already filled with contrasting flavours.
Serve it while it’s hot and share it.
Can’t Decide? That’s What the Meze Platter Is For
There is another way to approach all of this.
Don’t decide.
La Casa Ouzeria already offers a Meze Platter specifically designed as a sampling of its mezedes. It brings together Kalamari, Spanakopita, Tiropita, Sikotakia, Dolmades, Tzatziki, Homous and pita bread on one order.
For someone new to Greek food, or for a table that wants to experience several La Casa Ouzeria favourites without choosing each individually, it’s probably the easiest introduction to the meze experience.
And that’s really the point.
Mezedes aren’t supposed to make dinner complicated. They’re supposed to make it more social.
How Much Should You Order?
That depends on what happens next.
If your mezedes are simply the beginning of dinner, choose a few contrasting dishes for the table. A spread with pita, something from the sea and one warm dish such as Spanakopita, Dolmades or Saganaki creates plenty of variety before moving on to your entrées.
If you’d rather linger, order several mezedes and make sharing the focus of the evening.
Our menu is particularly well suited to this style of dining because the sharing doesn’t have to stop with the appetizers. We offer family-style Ouzeria, Minoe, and Seafood Platters, designed for two to three guests, if you want to continue the communal experience into the main meal.
There really isn’t a wrong way to do it.
A classic Greek salad at La Casa Ouzeria, with fresh tomatoes, peppers, red onion, olives and feta.
The La Casa Ouzeria Way: Take Your Time
Perhaps the most important part of ordering mezedes has nothing to do with which dishes you choose.
Don’t rush.
La Casa Ouzeria’s own story describes a Greek upbringing where food came from the land, Sundays revolved around family, and the table was prepared for whoever might arrive. Hospitality wasn’t treated as a special occasion. It was simply part of life.
That philosophy has followed the Portalaki family into La Casa Ouzeria.
Since 1996, generations of Penticton families and friends have gathered around these tables for dinners, birthdays, anniversaries, celebrations and ordinary evenings that sometimes become the ones you remember most.
Mezedes fit naturally into that story because they’re not really about getting an appetizer out of the way before dinner begins.
They are about beginning dinner together.
Order a few plates. Pass them around. Try something you haven’t had before. Have another piece of pita. Let the conversation run a little longer.
That’s how we’d start a Greek meal at La Casa Ouzeria.
Kali Orexi.
For more than 30 years, La Casa Ouzeria has been a place for friends and families to gather, share good food and enjoy time around the table.
Ready to Gather Around the Table?
Join us at La Casa Ouzeria, 1090 Main Street in Penticton, and discover your own favourite combination of Greek mezedes.
Dinner is served Wednesday through Sunday from 4:00 p.m. to close. Reserve your table online or call 250-492-9144.