Candia Taverna

Great service generous portions. Lots of feta on the Greek salad «Best pizza» my son says about the lamb pizza. Yummy soup, too.

I ordered the Kotosoupa soup to go and it was great! Service was good, and the price was alright, chicken was tender and the soup, tangy.
I will come again… and perhaps order more than just a soup.

The pizza was so good! Best in the neighbourhood (don’t even think of going to the chain store down the block.) Obviously fresh ingredients and they went the extra mile with the extra toppings (added a sweet touch for us)
Free home delivery, service with a smile, and super tasty. Had a positive experience here and WILL be back! Did I mention the free delivery… and no minimum order price. Happy customer here

Terrible. Red pasta sauce tastes like barbecue sauce, Alfredo sauce like thickened milk with no flavouring. Garlic bread was stale, salad came with no dressing. Not sure how they survive.

Have been going to this restaurant for years. The pizza is great, always generous with the toppings and the sauce is delicious. Kalamari dinner is excellent and comes with the best potatoes and rice. We especially enjoy the baked spaghetti as well as the souvlaki. Great restaurant nice owner (s)

Best place to go around UBC! Delicious food and friendly staff.

I am very careful before posting a negative review about a family owned establishment that has been around for a long time. These are the types of places that most people want to support, but alas there is lots of competition in the Greek food world and Candia just doesn’t make the cut.
Pros:
1/​the atmosphere is cozy and very classic Greek restaurant.
2/​the service is decent, and they certainly try hard.
3/​cops eat there all the time, so you’re safe, and if a place has cops, it’s usually good.
Cons: (basically the food)
1/​although the souvlaki is decent (minus the wet rice) everything else I have tried is not. Calamari is soggy with oil. Pizza is also very oily.
2/​Pastas are just plain bad.
So after having gone here many times, 80% of the time I have been disappointed, and unfortunately I am tired of holding on to the possibility of that 20% just to support a local establishment.

Recently went to this cozy and welcoming little Greek restaurant and WOWZA, I was impressed.
The servings are huge! None of the 4 people I went with were able to finish their entire entrees and we were all pleasantly surprised by the large Greek salads that accompanied each dish.
Although, I must say, the French Onion Soup was much too salty. But the rest of the meal was fabulous and extremely well priced considering the atmosphere and portion size.
The service was decent– they seemed a bit rushed and reluctant to seat us in certain areas since it was an early dinner… but, regardless, the waitress was friendly and even gave us a deal on one of the entrees when we incorrectly assumed that it was part of their specials.
Also, they have free and surprisingly fast delivery! Cant get much better than that :)

I recently moved to the neighborhood, so I have been looking for some new go-​to spots! Being part Greek myself, and a lover of Greek food, I was happy to find a Greek place. I’ve had a Greek appy and the Bacon Cheeseburger Pizza. I loved both! Also, the restaurant is very clean and the staff are friendly and attentive!
Happy to have found my new Greek and pizza place.

Been going to Candia for years. I’m not anymore. Found a head of a rusty bolt in my pizza which led me to look at the pizza which was missing the crust on one portion. Pretty obvious it had been dropped in the oven or on the floor. The rusty broken off bolt head was very disturbing and I am really lucky I didn’t crack my tooth as my jaw was hurting afterwards. Cathy offered me my next pizza free. Do I really want to eat another pizza from a place that doesn’t care about the food they serve? Additionally the shrimp on my pizza smelled so strong it was very unappetizing. I understand stuff goes on in the kitchen but throw it in the garbage and really, if I served someone a piece of metal I would call them back the next day and make a sincere apology. She should have found out what happened, called me back and mailed me a gift certificate. I think they just don’t care. Its been a month now so I’m pretty sure no call is coming. This was delivery service.

they deliver

My husband and I started ordering take out from here (mostly pizza) a few months ago. Everything was always delicious and hot, and ready when for pick up within 15 – 20 minutes. However, we won’t be going back due to the horrible lack of service during our last visit. We walked to the back of the restaurant as we normally would to pick up our order to overhear the chef yelling at someone named Cathy. From there on in the tension among the staff was palpable. We were ignored by the servers who kept walking past us. I eventually took a seat in a booth while my husband waited for a server to address us. He stopped one server to ask if our order was ready and she leaned in and said in a snide tone «do you think it’s ready?» We left immediately and won’t be going back. Too bad because their pizza is delicious.

We have been coming to this cozy little place for years. Their food and service has always been great .
We always have the large roast lamb and chicken souvlaki. The portions are huge thus leaving us a meal for the next day.
Just love the décor of wooden benches, tables and lots of hanging plants. Which creates a nice ambiance all around .
The washrooms are clean which is a plus and very important.

I ordered at Candia Taverna for take out. We ordered pizza and some Greek food. The pizza was great. The toppings were high quality and delicious. We ended up eating the Greek food a few days later. It was extremely tasty, until we found a STAPLE in the food. Yes a metal staple that it used to hold paper together. My husband bit down on it and immediately spit it out.
Some restaurants you give a second chance and some leave a bad taste in your mouth… literally.

Food quality has gone way downhill.
I ordered the scallops souvlaki because it has always tasted amazing. Not this time. The scallops were bland, the rice was watery and bland, and a friend’s greek salad was lukewarm (should have been cold). We’ve been to Candia maybe 5 times in the past few years, and it has been our favourite because the food used to be so flavourful and so good. We always talked about how amazing the scallops tasted for days after. Well, not any more. Maybe they changed the chefs…

I was very disappointed with my meal here.
I ordered grilled calamari as an appetizer, since I love it, but theirs was tough and very fishy. It was almost as if they had pre-​grilled it or something and let it sit, or they had overcooked it. Either way, it lacked the lightness I’ve had from grilled calamari before, and it also lacked the Asian spices that really take advantage of super-​grilled squid (which I don’t fault them for, but it’s why they shouldn’t over-​grill squid).
Then I had a seafood platter where they had simultaneously overcooked the salmon and scallops, undercooked the shrimp and gave me ketchup. Ketchup for a Greek platter? Really now… and for seafood!
Very disappointing. I’m not sure how it’s been there since my student days at UBC.

Their pizza is absolutely amazing! I’ve had their other dishes like Spaghetti with Meatballs, which I did not like due to its extreme blend-​ness (but their meatballs were good), and the Lasagna, which I really enjoyed! The meat Dolmades were pretty good, although my boyfriend was a bit disgruntled that it wasn’t hot like they made it sound like (it was lukewarm). I’d say their best dish would be the pizza, overall. #21 (it has lamb meat and feta cheese and other goodies) on a thin crust was simply amazing. There were CHUNKS of lamb meat underneath the layer of cheese. I didn’t like that they had bones in the meat (I found like two pieces), but I didn’t mind as much. It’s THAT good. Taking the rest home and eating it the next day was even more amazing.
The servers are always warm and welcoming (like grandmas or mothers dishing up your food). The interior design of this place adds to the warm ambiance that they’re creating with service alone. :) I will definitely come back here again.

The fact that I have already been to Candia Taverna twice already should be a sign that I like this place. I mostly enjoy this place because it’s not your typical Greek restaurant. Yes, they serve souvlakia, greek salads and moussakas, but the interior of the restaurant is particular. The walls are made of wood, and the window (one big window by the entrance of the restaurant) is covered with a lacy curtain. To be quite frank, I really like this place because it reminds me of a log cabin you would find on the mountain in Québec. Having lived in Québec for many years, I particularly like places with big fireplace and walls made of wood. It reminds me of the cold nights in beautiful Québec. However, Candia Taverna doesn’t serve Montréal food. Candia Taverna is a Greek restaurant and in my humble opinion, an excellent one.
The food is typical Greek food. I ordered the shrimp souvlakia and I was served a plate with baked potatoes, rice, a greek salad on the side, steamed vegetables, 2 shrimp skewers and tzatziki in a little cup. What I liked the mosrt were the shrimp which were well-​grilled. I was not a big fan of the steamed vegetables, but there was enough food for me to be full at the end of my meal. Strangely enough, we were also given the choice to have a garlic or pita bread. I have never been given that choice in a Greek restaurant before (especially garlic bread. I have only had garlic breads in italian restaurants). The pita bread was very nice with the tzaziki. In conclusion, it was a good portion for the price I paid.
The service was very efficient. The waitress was fast and polite. She brought us at the end a dessert for free to share. The ekmek (the name of the dessert) was very light. Not knowing what it was at the beginning, we guessed raisins, liquor, cream and sugar.
The categories are out of 5.
Food: ⁴⁄₅
Excellent but typical Greek food.
Service: ⁴⁄₅
Fast and efficient service.
Price: ⁴⁄₅
Fair price. 15 $ for the whole plate and I got a discount for being part of the UBC Food Society. :)

I’m sensitive to awkward service experiences and that has coloured my opinion of this place.
I’ve been here 3 times over the last 10 years or more (it seems to me like it has been there forever). The 2^nd and 3^rd times I questioned why I had not taken my own advice from the first time and not returned.
The food is «ok» — nothing special, but filling and typical of a pizza/​greek place. I have not, however had the pizza itself (I had souvlaki),. and people claim it is great. I’ve seen it and am doubtful and my dining partners never said anything except «what is for desert?».
The location is its strength IMO. There aren’t many evening dining options on this area of 10^th, which I consider a nice area, so I really «want» there to be some place special up here.
What really knaws at me though is a number of memorable negative service experiences here. 1 time identifying we have an entertainment book coupon git us dirty looks for the rest of the night. The next time, just plain unfriendly. I find it hard to shake that when I’m pretty convinced this place is locally owned, so i want to «like» the people. I did not.
They also used to have really hard weird wooden booths. Kind of cool, but kind of painful.

It’s not a bad option in the Point Grey village provided you stick to chicken or seafood. The lamb souvlaki was quite chewy in the last two times we tried it — yes, some people (me) never learn!