On Corfu, autumn announces itself not with a change of light but with the smell of figs drying in the sun. Along garden walls and terraced orchards across the island, split fig halves are laid out on wooden trays in the last heat of September, left to concentrate under the Ionian sky until their sugars thicken and their flesh turns the colour of dark honey. This is the beginning of sykomaida, Corfu's ancient fig pie, and it is the starting point of everything you are about to taste.
Lazaris Distillery & Artisan Sweets, working from its workshop in Corfu Town, has spent two decades gathering this island tradition and keeping it exactly as intricate, dark and aromatic as it should be. Fig Pie with Ouzo 150g is their classic rendering of sykomaida: a dense, chewy paste of sun-dried figs, enriched with red wine must and scented with the distillery's own ouzo, anise, fennel seed and black pepper.
A Recipe Older Than the Bottle Beside It
This is a traditional Corfiot dish made from a paste of dried figs, marinated in red wine, and flavored with Ouzo LAZARIS, anise, fennel seeds and black pepper. It is a recipe built for the island's long, mild winters, when fresh fruit disappeared from the table and families needed something concentrated, nourishing and full of flavour to see them through to spring. Drying was never just preservation here — it was transformation. The fig's watery sweetness becomes something denser and more complex, closer to dried dates or fig preserve, ready to absorb the spices and spirit that come next.
The choice of ouzo is not decorative. Lazaris distils its own ouzo on Corfu using a traditional bronze alembic and double distillation, and that same aniseed spirit is worked directly into the fig paste. The result is a pie where the anise doesn't just flavour the surface — it runs through the whole block, lifting the fruit's natural sweetness with a clean, warming spice note that lingers pleasantly on the palate.
What You'll Actually Taste
Cut a slice and the texture gives first: dense, slightly sticky, closer to a fruit terrine than a conventional pastry "pie." The first impression is deep fig sweetness, almost raisined, followed immediately by a wave of anise and fennel that keeps the richness from ever feeling heavy. Black pepper arrives last, a quiet, dry warmth at the back of the palate that makes you want another bite rather than a glass of water. It is sweet, yes, but never simply sweet — there's a savoury, almost rustic backbone that marks it as a product meant for grown-up palates and real tables, not a children's confection.
Why Corfu, and Why This Shape of Fig Pie
Corfu's position at the crossroads of Greek, Venetian and Ionian culinary influence shows up quietly in this product. Where mainland Greek fig preserves often lean purely sweet, Corfiot sykomaida keeps one foot in the world of the meze table — spiced, concentrated, built to be eaten in small, deliberate pieces alongside a drink rather than devoured as dessert. Marinated in red wine and flavored with ouzo, anise, fennel seeds and black pepper, its spicy taste fits exceptionally with distillates such as tsipouro, ouzo, grappa and brandy. This is a fig pie that was designed from the outset to sit beside a small glass of something strong, not to replace it.
The Workshop Behind the Paste
Konstantinos Lazaris began this project in 2005, inspired initially by the kumquat fruit, continuing the island's culinary history with his team. What started as one man's attachment to a local citrus has grown into a working distillery and confectionery house where products are handmade, produced in small batches and steeped in Corfiot history, with skilled artisans working from traditional Ionian recipes while constantly experimenting with new combinations. The fig pie range sits at the meeting point of these two crafts — the island's fruit traditions and the distillery's own spirits — which is precisely why the ouzo in this product isn't a generic flavouring but the same bronze-still spirit the house bottles under its own name.
It matters, too, that nothing here is mass-produced. Made by hand, in small batches, the house uses the finest, purest ingredients, following age-old traditions rather than industrial shortcuts — no syrupy fillers, no artificial fig flavouring standing in for the real, sun-dried fruit.
How to Serve It
Treat this fig pie the way Corfiots do: as a small, intense pleasure rather than a dessert course.
- With ouzo or tsipouro — the traditional pairing, where the pie's aniseed backbone echoes the glass in your hand rather than competing with it.
- Alongside cheese — a few thin slices next to a firm sheep's or goat's cheese, or a soft, tangy fresh cheese, turn it into an elegant, effortless cheese-board centrepiece.
- With cold cuts — its spice and sweetness cut cleanly through cured meats, in the same spirit as a good fruit mostarda.
- Scattered into a green salad — diced into small cubes, it adds unexpected depth and aroma to bitter leaves, walnuts and a sharp vinaigrette.
- On its own — sliced thin and eaten slowly, the way it has always been eaten on the island, as a small moment rather than a heavy finish to a meal.
A Gift With a Place in It
At 150 grams, this is a compact, giftable format — small enough to tuck into a hamper or a weekend bag, substantial enough to feel generous. It travels well, keeps its character for months, and introduces whoever receives it to a genuinely regional Greek product most people outside Corfu have never encountered: not baklava, not loukoumi, but something older, spicier and more particular to one island's pantry. For anyone building a Greek food gift around ouzo, ouzo glasses or mezze dishes, this fig pie is the edible companion that makes the whole gesture feel complete.
It is, in the end, a small block of concentrated autumn — fig, must, anise and pepper pressed together and left to deepen, the way Corfiot households have made it for generations, now simply available to a table far from the island that invented it.
