Tiropita (Τυρόπιτα) is the cheese pie: phyllo pastry built around a filling of feta and other cheeses bound with egg, baked until the pastry crisps. It is one of the defining savory pies of the Greek kitchen and a morning staple, sold from bakeries everywhere as a hot handheld. The whole thing turns on a single tension, brittle layered pastry against a soft, salty, slightly set cheese core. Lose control of either side and it stops being tiropita and becomes a greasy or a dry letdown.
The filling is built first and it is mostly about balance and bind. Crumbled feta is the backbone, usually cut with a milder cheese, soft white cheese, kasseri or similar, so it is rich without being punishingly salty, and egg is beaten through to set the mixture lightly as it bakes so it holds rather than running out. The phyllo is the other half of the work. Sheets are laid one at a time, each brushed with olive oil or melted butter, a base of several layers built, the cheese spread across, and several more sheets sealed on top; the fat between every sheet is what makes them separate and crisp instead of fusing into a pale slab. Good execution is unmistakable: a top that fractures and flakes under the teeth, a filling that is creamy and just set rather than weeping or stiff, the feta clear but not overwhelming, the bottom layers cooked through. Sloppy execution is the usual pair, an underbaked greasy base soaked from filling that was too wet or too cold, or pastry brushed too sparingly so it bakes dry and dusty and shatters to powder with nothing soft beneath it.
The form it takes is where the family splits. The version made for breakfast, the crumbly kourou-dough build, and the coiled strifti are distinct constructions with their own dough, folding and crust-to-filling ratios, and each deserves its own article rather than being crowded in here. The wider savory-pie family, spinach pies, leek pies, meat pies, runs alongside it, but tiropita is the cheese benchmark the rest are measured against, and the discipline never changes: a filling rich and bound but not wet, fat between every sheet, baked until the pastry truly crisps.