Chicken Skewers. Fresh. Juicy. Classic.

There is a dish on our menu that I did not expect to become the thing people come back for most consistently. Not the cocktails, not the platters, not the flagship Tzatziki Martini that gets photographed and talked about more than anything else we serve.

The chicken skewer.

It is our bestseller. Has been for most of the time we have been open. And the more I think about why, the more it makes sense, because a great chicken skewer is one of the most deceptively difficult things to get right in the Greek kitchen, and when it is right, there is almost nothing more satisfying to eat.

This is the story behind it.

Souvlaki: a dish with three thousand years of history

The chicken skewer we serve at Nectar is a version of souvlaki, one of the oldest and most deeply embedded dishes in Greek culinary tradition. The word souvlaki comes from the medieval Greek souvla, meaning skewer or spit, and the dish in various forms has been part of Greek life for somewhere in the region of three thousand years. Archaeological evidence from the Bronze Age site of Akrotiri on Santorini, one of the most significant Aegean excavations of the twentieth century, includes stone supports believed to have been used for cooking meat on skewers over fire. The basic concept, pieces of meat cooked on a skewer over direct heat, is as old as cooking itself in this part of the world.

In modern Greece, souvlaki is everywhere and in everything. It is street food, eaten from paper wrapping while walking. It is taverna food, arriving on a plate with tzatziki, pitta and a handful of sliced vegetables. It is what you eat after a late night out, what you cook at a Sunday family gathering, what you order when you cannot decide between anything else. No single dish captures the democratic, unfussy character of Greek food better than souvlaki. It does not try to be sophisticated. It simply tries to be good.

And being good, in the case of souvlaki, is considerably harder than it looks.

Why chicken souvlaki is harder to execute than it appears

Chicken is an unforgiving protein in a way that lamb or pork is not. Fat protects meat from drying out under heat. Chicken, particularly breast meat, has very little of it, which means the margin between perfectly cooked and disappointing is narrow. Too long on the heat and the texture tightens and dries. Not enough and the inside is underdone and unpleasant. And because souvlaki cooks over direct high heat on a skewer, there is no sauce to hide behind, no braising liquid to compensate for imprecision, no reduction to carry the flavour if the meat itself falls short.

The result is that most chicken souvlaki lands somewhere between acceptable and good. Genuinely excellent chicken souvlaki, the kind where the meat is still yielding and juicy at the centre while the outside has the right caramelisation and char, is rarer than it should be given how simple the dish appears.

The difference almost always comes down to two things: the marinade and the process.

What Margarita does differently

Margarita has been cooking Greek and Mediterranean food in Edinburgh for the better part of her career. Before Nectar she spent years in some of the city's most respected Mediterranean kitchens, including time as sous chef at Fava, which remains one of the strongest Greek restaurants in Scotland. The chicken skewer on our menu is built on her understanding of what makes this dish work at its best, and that understanding is not complicated to describe even if it took years to develop.

The marinade begins the process long before the chicken sees any heat. Olive oil, lemon, garlic, and a combination of dried herbs rooted in the Greek culinary tradition: oregano, thyme, and a precise balance between them that Margarita has refined over time. The acid from the lemon begins to break down the proteins in the chicken gently, which contributes to the texture you experience in the finished dish. The olive oil carries the aromatics into the meat rather than sitting on the surface. The garlic softens during cooking in a way that raw garlic in a quick marinade never does.

The chicken marinates properly. Not for twenty minutes before service, but for the kind of time that actually changes the character of the meat. This is the part that most people cannot see when the dish arrives at the table and one of the reasons why the result consistently surprises people who think they know what a chicken skewer is going to taste like.

The grilling itself is done over high direct heat, which is the only way to get the Maillard reaction that gives the outside of the skewer its colour and depth. The caramelisation on the surface of the chicken, the slight char on the edges, is not cosmetic. It is where a significant proportion of the flavour lives. Done at the wrong temperature, that colour never develops. Done correctly, it creates a crust that contrasts with the yielding interior in exactly the way it should.

The result is a chicken skewer that stays juicy. That sounds like a low bar. It is not.

How the dish evolved at Nectar

When we first opened, the chicken skewer was served with a side of courgette and carrot cut into long thin strands to create something resembling a vegetable pasta. It was a good idea: light, colourful, and a natural companion for the freshness of the marinated chicken.

But over time it changed. Margarita is not a chef who leaves dishes alone once they are on the menu. The kitchen is always testing, always refining, always asking whether the current version is the best version.

The vegetable accompaniment evolved into what we now serve: grilled vegetables, marinated before they meet the heat in a way that draws out their natural sweetness and adds a depth that raw or simply steamed vegetables never have. Oyster mushrooms, courgette, peppers, each cooked to the point where they have genuine character rather than acting as a neutral backdrop. They complement the chicken rather than competing with it, and they make the plate feel complete in the way that a dish needs to when it is ordered as a standalone rather than part of a larger spread.

The sharing plates format at Nectar means most tables order the chicken skewer alongside other dishes: the cheese filo pastry, the prawn saganaki, the meat platter. But the skewer also holds up completely as a dish on its own, which is a mark of something properly constructed. You do not need to surround it with other things for it to feel like enough.

Where it sits in the Greek kitchen

One of the things people notice when they spend time eating proper Greek food, rather than the gyros-and-hummus version that tends to represent it in the UK, is how many of the most satisfying dishes are the simplest ones. Greek food is built around freshness and restraint rather than complexity and layering. The philosophy is almost the opposite of French classical cooking: rather than building flavour through technique and reduction, you start with the best possible ingredient and do only what is necessary to reveal what it already is.

The chicken skewer is a perfect expression of that philosophy. There is no sauce to hide behind. No elaborate garnish to distract. Just marinated chicken, direct heat, and the skill to know when it is done. When that combination is right, it does not need anything else.

This is also why souvlaki has survived for three thousand years while more fashionable dishes have come and gone. It is not a dish that depends on trends. It depends on execution. And execution, done consistently, is what earns the kind of loyalty that turns a first-time visitor into someone who comes back and orders the same thing again before they have even looked at the rest of the menu.

What to drink alongside it

The chicken skewer pairs well across both the wine list and the cocktail menu, and the pairing question is more interesting than it might first appear because the dish has two distinct flavour registers: the bright, herby character from the marinade, and the deeper, slightly smoky quality from the grill.

On the wine side, the Assyrtiko Sauvignon Blanc is the match I would reach for first. Assyrtiko is one of Greece's most important white grapes, grown predominantly on Santorini, where the volcanic soil and the extreme conditions of the island produce a wine of unusual intensity and mineral precision. It is crisp, citrus-forward, and has an acidity that cuts through the richness of the olive oil marinade while complementing the lemon that runs through the whole dish. Drinking an Assyrtiko alongside a Greek chicken souvlaki is one of those pairings where geography does the work: two things from the same culinary tradition that fit together without needing to be explained.

On the cocktail side, the Tzatziki Martini is the combination that makes most sense and is also the most distinctly Nectar pairing on the menu. The Tzatziki Martini is built on cucumber, yogurt, dill and garlic, clarified until it arrives completely clear in the glass. The flavour profile echoes the traditional tzatziki accompaniment of souvlaki in the most direct way possible, but in a form that is genuinely surprising. Eating the skewer alongside the Tzatziki Martini is the most Greek thing you can do at this bar, and I mean that as the highest possible compliment to both dishes.

Why it keeps getting ordered

I have thought about this a lot over the past year, because when something becomes your bestseller it is worth understanding why rather than just being grateful for it.

Part of it is familiarity. A chicken skewer is something most people feel comfortable ordering, particularly on a first visit when the menu is new and some of the other dishes require a small leap of faith. The Tzatziki Martini asks something of you before you try it. The chicken skewer does not.

But familiarity alone does not explain why it keeps coming back to tables that have been before, ordered by people who already know the menu well. That part is simpler: it is consistently excellent, and consistently excellent is what earns repeat orders in a way that occasionally excellent never quite does.

Every dish on the menu gets our full attention. But there is something about the chicken skewer that reminds me why we opened Nectar in the first place. Not to serve food that surprises people with its ambition, though we try to do that too. But to serve food that makes people feel genuinely well looked after. That makes the table feel settled and warm. That does exactly what it promises, every time.

That, in the end, is what a great souvlaki has always been.

Book a table at Nectar Bar and order the chicken skewer. It has earned its place at the top of the menu.

Opening hours Tuesday to Thursday: 5pm to 11pm Friday: 5pm to 1am Saturday: 12pm to 1am Sunday: 12pm to 11pm Monday: Closed

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