• Mediterranean
  • Mediterranean
  • Mediterranean

Mediterranean restaurants in the West Island

Mediterranean cuisine is indigenous to the countries surrounding the Mediterranean Sea, from the Straits of Gibraltar to the Suez Canal. Most people are familiar with Italian and Greek cooking, but until recently the foods of the Eastern Mediterranean were not commonly found away from their home areas. As people from the Middle East migrated to other countries, they took their cooking with them. More and more people became familiar with falafel, hummus, lamb shanks with rice and spices and other flavorful offerings of the Eastern Mediterranean.

Olive oil is central to most Mediterranean cooking, as is seafood, lamb, poultry and pungent spices. Lemons, nutmeg and caviar appear on the tables and in the cooking of the Eastern Med, but not so much in the west. Oregano, thyme, basil and fennel are commonly used spices.

Because of the rocky and mountainous terrain, animal husbandry is more suitable for goats and sheep than the much larger cattle, so Mediterranean cuisine has much of the former, but little of the latter.