Souvlaki (Σουβλάκι) is the defining piece of Greek street grilling: small pieces of meat threaded onto a wooden skewer and cooked over charcoal. The word means "little skewer," and that literalism is the whole point. The skewer is not a delivery mechanism for a sauce or a bread; it is the food. Pork is the everyday choice, with chicken and lamb also common, and the meat is cut into pieces small enough to take char on every face while staying juicy at the center. Across Greece this is sold from a counter the moment it comes off the grill, eaten either straight from the stick or folded into pita.
The build starts with the cut and the cube size. Pieces should be roughly even so they cook at the same rate, and large enough that they do not dry out in the seconds it takes to color the outside. They go onto the kalamaki, the thin wooden skewer that gives the dish its informal name, then over live charcoal where the cook turns them to build an even crust. Good execution shows as deep browning with a moist interior and a faint smoke that the charcoal contributes and a gas grill cannot. Sloppy execution is unmistakable: cubes cut unevenly so some are scorched while others are raw, meat left over the heat until it turns to dry fiber, or a grill run too cool so the pieces steam grey instead of taking color. Salt and the smoke do most of the seasoning work; the meat should taste of itself.
How it reaches you is where souvlaki splits. Eaten from the stick, it is the unadorned form: hot meat, maybe a wedge of bread alongside, nothing to hide behind. Folded into pita, the skewer is pulled and the meat tipped into warm flatbread with the usual accompaniments. The choice of meat is its own axis, with pork as the common default and lamb the older and pricier option, and each of those deserves its own article rather than being crowded in here. What stays constant is the skewer-and-charcoal core: this is grilled meat treated as the centerpiece, judged on the cut, the fire, and the cook's timing rather than on anything wrapped around it.