Thessaloniki has a strong claim to being the best food city in Greece. The Sephardic, Anatolian and Pontic Greek refugees who arrived in the 20th century each brought their own cooking, and it has been folded into a local cuisine that runs from cheap street snacks to long, alcohol-fuelled mezedopoleio meals. Start your day with bougatsa — flaky phyllo filled with semolina cream, cheese or mince — from a bougatsatzidiko near the centre. Lunch on a koulouri sesame ring from a street cart. For dinner head to Ladadika or Ano Poli for small plates of grilled octopus, mydia saganaki (mussels in tomato and feta) and mydopilafo, washed down with carafes of tsipouro.