Apaki (Απάκι) is the cured meat itself, not a sandwich: a Cretan preparation of pork loin marinated in vinegar, then smoked over aromatic wood with sage and other herbs, sliced thin and used as a building block. This article covers the meat on its own terms, because how it is made determines everything a cook can later do with it. The defining trait is the double treatment, an acid soak followed by smoke, which gives the loin a tang and a savory depth that a plain roast pork never reaches.
The build runs in a fixed order. A lean cut of pork loin goes into a vinegar bath, often with wine and crushed herbs, long enough for the acid to penetrate and firm the meat. It is then dried and cold-smoked with sage, thyme, and similar Cretan herbs until the surface darkens and the interior sets. Good apaki slices clean and translucent at the edge, carries a clear vinegar brightness behind the smoke, and stays supple rather than dry. Sloppy versions show the failure modes plainly: too short a marinade and the tang sits only on the surface while the center tastes flat; too hot or rushed a smoke and the loin turns leathery, hard to slice thin, and bitter from scorched herbs rather than perfumed by them. Salt balance matters as much as smoke, since the meat is meant to be eaten in thin layers where every component reads at full strength.
From there it shifts by how thin it is cut and how it is served. Shaved nearly transparent, it works cold as a mezze with bread and a hard cheese, the vinegar cutting the fat of the cheese. Cut a touch thicker and warmed in a pan, the smoke opens up and the texture turns closer to a cooked charcuterie, which is how it most often reaches a wrap or a sandwich. The same loin can lean smokier or sharper depending on the wood and the length of the acid soak, and producers across Crete each pitch that balance differently. Where the meat is folded into bread with cheese and tomato, that assembly is its own preparation, the apaki sandwich, and it deserves its own article rather than being crowded in here. The pita version, smoked pork rolled in a soft flatbread, likewise stands apart and is treated separately.