The Cyclades Restaurants
We’ve compiled the best of the best in The Cyclades - browse our top choices for Restaurants during your stay.
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We’ve compiled the best of the best in The Cyclades - browse our top choices for Restaurants during your stay.
Since 1922, three generations of the Roussos family have offered hospitality and fine food in this tiny blue-and-white taverna. Outside tables overlook the caldera, inside murals and paintings are by the owner. Traditional recipes and local ingredients are given room to shine and are presented well by the attentive staff. If you are lucky enough to get a reservation, the cozy atmosphere may well find you chatting with fellow diners who are just as pleased with their choice.
Romantic and rightly popular, Barriello has an enviable position with views of the sea and the Trypiti village square. A 150-year-old mansion has been repurposed to good effect by charismatic owner Takis. Local ingredients, mostly grown on their own farm, are sometimes playfully presented with elements of modern creative Greek cuisine. It's more fine dining than traditional taverna but the tastes are refined and recognisable and it is generally regarded as the best food on the island.
By Naousa’s charming harbor, with a stunning view of the sea, BlueFish brings a unique fusion of Greek and Japanese seafood cuisine to Paros—and it works divinely. The acclaimed menu is matched only by the sophisticated whitewashed and elegant setting. Appetizers include a delightful sea bass carpaccio and an impressively presented tomato, sea fennel, caper, and basil salad. Eclectic mains include fresh, local sea bass with crispy skin over al dente grilled vegetables, fresh catches-of-the-day prepared in Japanese robata style, and a prawn pasta with a clear traditional Japanese dashi broth. Desserts, including a light and creamy pavlova, are a smooth and sweet ending.
Dining here is on an elevated veranda right above the calm blue waters of Ayios Georgios Bay. The line of drying octopus may be out, evidence of Captain Pipinos's pride in serving the freshest seafood on the island. Marcos Pipinos's family boats come in each day with fresh seafood.
Fronted by beautiful Ayios Ioannis Beach, Hippie Fish is one of the liveliest on-the-beach restaurants—an institution since the 1970s, it has continuously updated and moved with the times, but what it will always be famous for is making the big screen as the 1989 setting for the movie Shirley Valentine, about a dissatisfied housewife "finding herself" on Mykonos. Now offering private dining on the beach with the waves underfoot, visitors can recreate their own cinematic experience.
French-trained chef Kostas Bougiouris lends his expertise to this waterside restaurant. Almost on the beach, the setting is elegant and the cooking focuses on seafood and local Syros products, presented in a modern, creative style. The most gourmet of Syros eateries, crisp linen and a sophisticated white design are the backgound to the immaculately plated dishes. Romantic and intimate in atmosphere, friendly and attentive staff ensure that every visit is memorable.
The old open-air cinema, steps away from the main street, has been lovingly reimagined as the island's gastronomic hot spot. A romantic pastel-painted courtyard festooned with greenery fronts the clearest expression of Tinos's outstanding produce, where clever contemporary trends are married to traditional techniques and recipes. Elegant and beautifully plated, dishes are offered by a brother and sister team proud of their island heritage. Every Greek child knows the song "There was a little boat" (Itan ena mikro karavi) and every visitor to Tinos should know its impressive namesake.
A bright and fresh room, wistfully painted with sea creatures and cacti, is the backdrop to this bijou establishment on the main street. Refined Aegean cuisine with jewel-like presentation is the order of the day—this is food that you devour with your eyes first. There is magic in those saucepans, though, as this is five-star cooking. The owners and staff are warm and keen to explain the details of every dish. Kalokeri means summer in Greek and the sunshine shines out of every dish. This is an unmissable and unique place.
Chef George Mavridis is an expert at merging the flavors of traditional Greek dishes with contemporary tastes to offer an exciting menu that is beautifully presented. The dining space, a whitewashed indoor room and garden dining area shrouded by vines, is inviting. Menus change seasonally but expect Asian and Italian flavors to sit aside the best Greek produce. Attentive and unhurried service makes for the best dining on the island.
An old ceramics factory with a jewel of a courtyard—all stone arches and climbing greenery—is the theater set for the most beautiful restaurant in Ermoupoli. With inspiration from around the globe, this is a very modern iteration of Greek food; ceviches and tartares feature, and some dishes are deconstructed to their constituent parts. An all-day brunch menu makes it an atmospheric place to hang out in the day but as dusk falls the romance notches up as gentle music plays, lights twinkle, and the food gets more ambitious.
On a cliffside setting by the brilliantly painted huts of Mandrakia is the island's best fish taverna. The very essence of summer is to be had on the large terrace on the waterfront. The view is sublime but the food more than punches its weight. Order a bottle of white from their well-chosen list and enjoy the best seafood with the waves splashing by your feet.
Magic happens in the kitchens of this farm-to-table eatery. A handwritten menu in a school exercise book guides you around the local approach of the Psatha family; if they can't grow it or rear it themselves, they don't sell it. The ingredients in front of you shout of the sun and the earth, all served in a leafy courtyard where geraniums fight for space with herbs for the pot. Quirky touches abound—your bread hangs from the back of your chair in a string bag, and meals are served on handmade terracotta—but it all makes sense in this singular evocation of the islands terroir.
Fancy dining with the sand between your toes and the waves lapping nearby? Palatia on Ayia Anna Beach fits the bill with traditional fare and a stunning view. Decorated in simple Cycladic style, with tables on the beach itself the menu features fresh seafood specialties and Naxian plates created with locally sourced ingredients. The whole beach dining scene can only be bettered if accompanied by a blazing sunset.
A pastel-yellow courtyard hidden among the sea captains' mansions is where those in the know come to eat in Ia. Elegant and delicious, these modern Greek updates on classic cooking are rays of sunshine among the more tourist-oriented fare elsewhere. Rooted in island ingredients, this is food to make you smile. Friendly, and down-to-earth staff help to make the experience memorable and the all Greek wine list is particularly strong on the local Santorini offerings.
For many repeat visitors a trip to Paros is unthinkable without a visit to Siparos. This storied eatery is along the coast of Naousa Bay in the beach town of Santa Maria and well deserves its reputation as one of the island's finest. A stunning seaside location is enhanced by an elegant and modern design. Bold, contemporary tastes are teased from traditional recipes but it is in the fish dishes that the local Paros flavors sing loudest.
The first of the Ammoudi fish houses that opened in the 1980s is still a standout among the several excellent tavernas that line the quay in this tiny fishing port just below Ia—you can walk down and take a cab back to town. Lapping waves, bobbing fishing boats, and tables so close to the water's edge that a clumsy move might add a swim to the evening's entertainment, testify to the freshness of the fish, which is simply grilled. Most diners arrive in time to witness the sunset, but the meal often steals the show.
Set on a platform on Ormos Isternion Bay, right up against the Aegean Sea with views of Syros, chef and owner Antonia Zarpa produces innovative, well-thought-out dishes that capture the local flavorsof her beloved island. Just as pilgrims visit the Cathedral, so do foodie-worshippers head to Thalassaki for its ephemeral works of art—the restaurant has such a cult following that speedboats zip over from Mykonos for lunch.
Located right off the beach in Kini, on a raised, whitewashed dining space lined with pretty white curtains, Allou Yialou is known for its spectacular sunset dining. It's also where everyone goes for Greek dishes that take on a delightful and delicious gourmet twist. Chef Lina Fournistaki and her husband Yiannis pay close attention to service, and the presentation is impressive—it is rightly an island favorite with the locals for a special meal.
Tucked in a quieter corner of Ornos Bay, Apaggio is sparsely decorated and lined with large open windows for a perfect, unobstructed view of the sea. Romantic fairy lights twinkle overhead as you peruse the menu of Greek classics but it is probably wiser to ask about the selection of local fish. Fresh and simply grilled, this is the authentic way to taste the Island.
A cut above the tavernas that cling to Pollonia's seafront, Armira harvests the local ingredients to fine effect in its take on modern Mediterranean cuisine. The roof garden is a fine place to savor the sweetest of seafood direct from the family fishing boat. The restaurant decamps to Piraeus in winter, bringing a taste of the islands to Athens.
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