I Sampled the ‘Greggs of Greece’: £2.50 Sausage Roll Pies and Pastries That Rival M&S!

WHILE Greggs is a quintessential part of British culture, there is bizarrely a similar version of it more than 1,500 miles away.

The famous food chain recently revealed that it sells more sausage rolls at Airport than at any of its other UK branches throughout the UK – suggesting that people really miss their pastries when going abroad.

I tried the ‘Greggs of Greece’ during a recent trip to AthensCredit: Ryan Gray Gregory’s opened 20 years after the UK GreggsCredit: Ryan Gray

And having recently visited Athens, I stumbled across the coincidentally named Gregory’s, which has more than 300 branches throughout (as well as a few in Cyprus, Romania and Germany).

Serving a suspiciously similar fare, albeit with a bit of a Greek twist, a cursory Google search assured me that no plagiarism took place and that it is merely a happy quirk of fate that and Gregorys share such similar titles.

Both chains got their names from their respective founders, with John Gregg opening the first of the UK chain’s branches in Gosforth, near Newcastle, in 1951, while Grigoris Georgatos launched the first Gregory’s in Athens back in 1972.

Nevertheless, the similarities are so obvious that I decided to put the Greek chain up against its UK namesake, to see if it satisfies in quite the same way.

I ventured to one of the many Gregory’s branches found along the streets of Athens, easily recognisable by their twisty green neon signs.

The first thing I noticed is that, in comparison to , it has a much more extensive range of items.

If you’re there for breakfast, you can get all the typical morning pastries, from croissants to pain-au-chocolat and cinnamon rolls.

However, they also have some less expected choices, like toasted sandwiches filled with peanut butter and banana, catering for those with not quite so conventional tastes.

But I was there mainly to see if its pastry game was up to scratch and asked the woman behind the counter what the most popular items were.

She informed me that the plain cheese and the cheese and spinach pies were among their best sellers, so I followed her advice and ordered one of each, for the princely sums of £2 and £2.90.

The cheese and spinach stuffed pastry is a typically Greek choice, commonly known as a spanakopita.

And actually, it was more or less on par with some of the other spanakopita I tried from more reputable and higher priced establishments during my visit to the Greek capital.

However, I’m not sure it’s a filling that would be racing off the shelves in Greggs, were it to be given a chance back in the UK, and would arguably be more at home in the Marks and Spencer food hall.

Sadly the sausage roll options in Greece leave plenty to be desired.

The Gregory’s version of the iconic British stalwart was a poor imitation, instead being a hot dog sausage ‘pie’ wrapped in a crust for £2.90 (more than double the UK’s £1.35, even after).

It looked so hard and crunchy that I didn’t think it would be worth risking my teeth ordering one.

That was certainly the biggest disparity between the two, however, with the sweet options, the sandwiches and the hot drinks all very much on a level playing field with the Greggs I know and love.

Their version of the sausage roll looked a lot less appealing I was impressed with the rest of their pastries, howeverCredit: Ryan Gray

Afterwards, I still had room for one of their apricot tarts, which was tasty if unspectacular at £2.40, and pretty much what I was expecting from the outset.

Nevertheless, I don’t really have too many bad words to say about Gregorys, even with their weak sausage roll options taken into consideration.

In Greece, pastries are a big part of the local cuisine, and it provided me with an affordable and unpretentious way of introducing myself to this world I previously knew very little about.

While I’m certain there are better places to try these foods, this certainly opened the door and showed me what the basic level should be, and for that, it serves a great purpose.

It’s like a Greek person going to a for a Sunday roast dinner or a Full English – it’s not going to be the best one they’ll ever try, but it does a job of demonstrating (in a round about way) something that is much less accessible back home.

Although it didn’t stop me grabbing another for the road trip home from the airport…

In the mean time, we went down to

And here’s how to find the

It certainly lived up to standards of other bakeries across GreeceCredit: Ryan Gray