Rex Restaurant

Rex opened in 1932 on Kapodistriou Street, directly behind the Liston arcade, and has been serving the same traditional Corfiot menu to generations of the island's residents and visitors ever since. The restaurant occupies a narrow two-storey building with an interior dining room of exposed stone walls and framed photographs of the island's 20th-century history, and a pavement terrace that opens onto one of Corfu Town's most atmospheric streets in summer.

The menu is the full Corfiot canon, each dish executed from the recipes the original owners wrote down in the 1930s. Sofrito — beef stewed slowly in a white-wine, garlic, and vinegar sauce served over rice — is the restaurant's defining dish and possibly the single most recognisable example of Venetian-Greek fusion cooking in Greece. Pastitsada — rooster (occasionally beef) in a cinnamon-and-clove-spiced tomato sauce, served over thick pastitsada pasta — is the Sunday-lunch classic of the island. Bourdeto — local fish (usually scorpionfish) in a fiery red-pepper-and-tomato sauce — is the cold-weather dish. All three are exceptional here.

The wine list sensibly stays close to home: Greek whites from Cephalonia and Santorini, a small selection of Corfiot producers, and a handful of reasonable Italian reds that reflect the Venetian legacy. Prices are friendly for a restaurant of this age and reputation.

The restaurant is popular with Corfu Town residents, summer visitors, and every travel journalist who has written about the island in the past three decades. The pavement terrace is the most photographed in the city; ask for a streetside table for the full atmosphere.

Rex is Corfu Town's team-dinner answer — the menu is familiar enough that no one at the table needs explanation, the sofrito and pastitsada scale well for sharing, the atmosphere on the pavement terrace makes even the tenth dinner of the summer feel like an event, and the bill for eight people with wine comes under €50 per head. Book the four-seater on the corner for the best view of Kapodistriou.