The Nectar Platters: Everything on the Menu, Built Into One Dish

I should be upfront about something before we get into this.

The platters are our most ordered items. By a significant margin. And I have a slightly complicated relationship with that fact, because my honest opinion is that the best way to eat at Nectar is not to order a platter at all. It is to order five or six individual dishes, share everything across the table, and let the meal develop in the way that Greek sharing food is really designed to do.

But most of our guests would disagree with me on this, and they are not wrong. The platters are popular for good reasons. They are generous, well-constructed, and they give you a genuine cross-section of what Margarita's kitchen produces in a single order. When someone arrives hungry, short on time, or simply wanting one decisive dish rather than a series of smaller decisions, the platter is the right answer.

So here is everything you need to know about both of them, including what to add, what to drink, and where I think the platter ends and something better begins.

What the platters actually are

The simplest way to describe either platter is as a curated tour of the menu. They are not a single dish. They are an assembly of several things, chosen to work together and to give you a sense of the full range of what the kitchen does, in a format that arrives as one order rather than several.

Both platters share two components: pitta bread and Greek salad. Everything else is different, which is worth knowing before you choose between them, because the meat platter and the veggie platter are not variations on the same theme. They are genuinely distinct eating experiences that happen to arrive in the same format.

One important note on the Greek salad: on the platter it comes without feta. If you order the Greek salad as a standalone dish it arrives with feta, which is the traditional version. On the platter, the balance of the other components means the feta lives elsewhere, in the dips, and removing it from the salad keeps the overall experience cleaner. It is a deliberate decision rather than an oversight.

The Meat Platter

The meat platter is built around three things: the chicken skewer, the potato pebbles, and the Greek sausage.

The chicken skewer you can read about in detail elsewhere on this blog, and I would encourage you to because the story behind it is worth knowing. The short version is that it is our bestselling individual dish, marinated properly in olive oil, lemon, garlic and herbs, grilled over direct heat, and consistently the thing people come back to order again on a second visit. Having it as part of the platter is the most efficient way to try it if you are ordering for one.

The potato pebbles are something I am slightly proud of. Baby potatoes, boiled until they are cooked through, then crushed so the surface breaks open and the interior is exposed, then into the fryer until the outside is crisp and golden. Finished with spices and garnish. The result is something that occupies the space where you might expect fries but delivers considerably more: a crisp exterior with a fluffy, yielding interior, and a flavour that comes from both the potato itself and the seasoning rather than from oil alone. They are our version of what fries could be if you gave them a bit more thought.

The Greek sausage is the thing on the meat platter that most people do not know about before they order it, because it is the one item we currently only serve as part of the platter. You cannot order it separately, except by special request. It is a traditional Greek sausage seasoned with orange peel, fennel and herbs in the way that regional Greek sausage-making has done for generations, and it is one of those components that people tend to mention specifically when they describe the platter afterwards. Slightly spiced, deeply savoury, and genuinely different from anything else on the menu.

The dips that come with the meat platter are tirokafteri and tzatziki. Tirokafteri is a spiced feta dip, made from yogurt, feta, paprika and chillies, and it has a heat to it that builds rather than hits immediately. It works particularly well alongside the potato pebbles and the sausage. The tzatziki is Margarita's recipe, made entirely in-house, and it is the natural partner for the chicken skewer in the way that tzatziki has always been the natural partner for souvlaki in Greece.

If you want to swap either dip for something different, ask. The dips are interchangeable and nobody is going to make you eat tirokafteri if you would rather have hummus.

The Veggie Platter

The veggie platter is built around zucchini fries, grilled halloumi, and falafel, which together cover three completely different registers of vegetarian cooking and make for a more varied eating experience than the description might suggest.

The zucchini fries are one of the most consistently underestimated things on our menu. Courgette cut into batons, lightly battered, fried until crisp. They are lighter than standard fries, have a natural sweetness that comes through once the batter is properly seasoned, and they disappear faster than almost anything else on a shared table. People who order them without much expectation tend to be the ones who mention them most specifically afterwards.

The halloumi I have written about at length elsewhere, and the full story of why it behaves the way it does under heat and why the pairing with forest fruit chutney is not accidental is worth reading if you have not already. On the platter, the halloumi brings the richness and the savoury depth that anchors the whole thing. It is the component that makes the veggie platter feel genuinely satisfying rather than simply well-intentioned.

The falafel brings a different texture entirely: a crisp exterior with a dense, herb-flecked interior that adds earthiness and weight to a platter that might otherwise feel too light. Falafel in the Greek and eastern Mediterranean tradition is made from chickpeas rather than the broader bean base used in some other traditions, and the flavour is cleaner and more delicate than versions that rely heavily on binding agents.

The dips here are hummus and tzatziki, which suit the character of the veggie platter more naturally than the tirokafteri that comes with the meat version. The hummus is smooth and properly made, not a supermarket substitute, and it works as both a dip for the pitta and a companion for the falafel in the way that the two ingredients have always belonged together across the eastern Mediterranean.

How much food is this, really

A genuinely hungry person can eat a platter alone. I do this regularly. The portions are designed to be generous rather than decorative, and if you arrive at Nectar having not eaten since lunchtime and you order a platter for yourself, you will not leave hungry.

Most people, however, order a platter between two and then add one or two things alongside it. This is the format I see most often at the tables and it works well: the platter provides the foundation and the additional dishes give the meal some movement and variety. The two additions I find myself recommending most consistently are the cheese filo pastry and the prawns in tomato sauce. The filo pastry is the easiest addition: it arrives quickly, it is shareable in exactly the right portion, and the sweet and savoury combination adds a dimension that neither platter has on its own. The prawns in tomato sauce bring a richness and a depth that turns what might otherwise be a relatively straightforward meal into something that feels properly considered.

For a table of three or four, I would honestly suggest skipping the platter entirely and building the table from individual dishes instead. Four people sharing a platter together is a slightly awkward exercise in division. Four people sharing six or seven individual dishes is a completely different and more enjoyable meal. But again, most of our guests would disagree with me, and the number of tables of four that order two platters and share them across the group suggests that the format works for people in a way I slightly underestimate.

A note on the better way to eat, in my opinion

I said at the beginning that I have a complicated relationship with the platters being our most ordered items, and I want to be clear about why, because it is not a criticism of the platters themselves.

The reason I think individual dishes produce a better meal is that they create more conversation. When five things arrive at a table and everyone is reaching across for different combinations, something happens to the dynamic that does not happen when everyone has their own defined plate. People start making recommendations. They push dishes toward each other. They argue gently about which combination works better. The food becomes the engine of the evening rather than the fuel for it.

The platter is a complete, well-constructed, satisfying meal. The individual dish approach is a different kind of experience entirely, and I think it is the one that best reflects what the Greek tradition of eating together was always meant to produce.

But this is my opinion. Come and try both and form your own.

What to drink

We made a deliberate decision not to add a pairing suggestion to the platter on the menu, which probably looks like an oversight given that the food menu pairs cocktails and wines to almost every other dish. It was not an oversight. The platters are so varied in their components that a single pairing recommendation would inevitably fit some parts of the meal better than others and feel slightly wrong alongside the rest.

The honest answer is to drink what you want. But if you are asking for a recommendation, here is how I think about it.

A bottle of Cremant is the thing that lifts a platter meal in a way I find hard to explain but consistently notice at the tables. Something about the lightness and the gentle effervescence cuts through the richness of the dips and the fried components and keeps the whole meal feeling fresh rather than heavy. Our Cremant de Limoux Salasar D'Azur is the one I would reach for. It is a serious sparkling wine from the Languedoc, brioche and hazelnut on the nose, genuinely complex, and at a price point that makes a bottle feel like a natural part of the meal rather than an occasion.

On the still wine side, I would go to the Greek options on our list. The Assyrtiko Sauvignon Blanc is the match for the veggie platter: its crisp acidity and mineral precision suit the lightness of the zucchini fries and the falafel and cut cleanly through the halloumi. For the meat platter, the Xinomavro Syrah Merlot is the direction I would go. Xinomavro is one of Greece's most important red grapes, grown primarily in northern Greece in the Macedonia region, and it produces wines of real structure and depth that sit naturally alongside the richness of the sausage and the earthiness of the potato pebbles.

Drinking Greek wine alongside Greek food is one of those combinations that works because it has always worked. The two things grew up together in the same soil and the same culinary tradition, and the pairing makes sense in a way that is felt rather than explained.

Book a table at Nectar Bar and start with a platter. Or do not, and order everything individually instead. Either way, I think you will enjoy it.

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

Nectar Bar, 73 Broughton Street, Edinburgh EH1 3RJ