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Restaurants of Kea
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Matt's Favorite Restaurants of Kea |
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This is one of my two primary hangouts. Located at the top of the main platia, Rolando and his wife Krissa serve specialties from the island and from the island of Corfu where he comes from. His mezedes pikilea that he serves with ouzo is one of the best anywhere. Also highly rated are his fried kalamari, gavros, rooster in red sauce, octopus stifado, beef tongue, sofrito (a corfiot meat dish) and the best keftedes in Greece. Excellent red wine. (Andrea's favorite). For lunch or breakfast ask for his super-omelet. Nobody fries fish as well as Rolando and he goes all the way to Lavrion to get the freshest. Our staple is the vleeta (the world's best boiled greens) and the kolokithakia vratsa (boiled zuchinni smothered in garlic and olive oil). Get the fried aferinia (very small fish)with extra onions and you will always come back. Also grilled sardines and kolios (mackeral). Rolando makes the best mousaka in Greece. Trust me. |
If I am not at Rolando's chances are I am eating here, and on some nights I am at both places since they are right next to each other in the main square. Yannis is one of the best grill cooks on the island if not in Greece. Come Saturday night for roast suckling pig and kondosouvli or any night for paidiakia (lambchops), steak, roast pork, and excellent oven dishes. Great white wine and wonderful atmosphere. Favorite of many of the locals. I love the spanakopita which I have for dinner and then order another to take home and have for breakfast. The manindaropita (mushroom pie) is also great. I love everything. I could eat here every day if there were not other great restaurants in hora. Nikos is the hardest working waiter on the island. I wish there were two of him. In the winter he only opens on weekends. |
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To Steki is a small traditional family run taverna that is on the way to the Lion in Ioulida. They feature pretty much the same food as the other tavernas in Ioulida with a few minor variations but the service is friendly and as all the restaurants in Ioulida the food is good and the location on the edge of the village on the side of a mountain can't be beat. Try their strapatsada which is like scrambled eggs with tomatoes, peppers and feta cheese. Stuffed kalamari, goat in lemon sauce, and a sort of eggplant parmesian like mousaka without the fluff. Son Yiannis is a great waiter and wonderful personality. |
The first restaurant you see when you come through the gate of the village is owned by Yannis and Evangelia and serves great lamb in lemon sauce, vleeta, and many oven dishes. One morning I had the best cheese omelet I have ever eaten. The Piatsa is very small so chances are by the end of the night you will be friends with whoever else happens to be eating there. Good wine. Good island atmosphere and the only restaurant in the hora that is open year-round. |
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The best place for espresso. Check out the patio in the back and sit beneath the ancient walls of the city. Home of Billy the blind dog. The place to be for football and basketball games not to mention ouzo and meze in the evening. One of the only places to get Guiness. |
For watching the sunset or having an after dinner desert you can't beat this place. Excellent Greek traditional sweets and ice-cream and amazing view by day or night. Good spot for an ouzo and a simple meze too. |
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Chances are you won't find this place but if you do you will agree that the Karthea Taverna makes some of the best food you will eat in Greece. Located far away from the port, and from anything except the area known as Kato Meria which is on the way to, well, nowhere really. But they have great food for lunch and dinner and many of the celebrations, baptisms and religious festivals end up here. You will need a rental car or you can take a taxi and arrange to be picked up later. Try the goat cooked in paper and the excellent wine. |
Though most of the yachters head for the big tavernas, the simple truth is that Thalia is the best cook in Vourkari. Serving a variety of mezedes from her native Asia Minor, we stopped here for an ouzo and a snack one evening and ended up eating for six hours. I recommend her marinated anchovies, pastramatopita, tiropita, grilled octopus and the pikilea. But the best thing is the Thalia Salad. She also has a small traditional sweet shop in Korissia. |
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Coffee, traditional deserts, yogurt with Kea honey and nuts, rice-pudding and ouzo and mezedes make this simple cafe the best place to be while waiting for the ferry boat. He had a cat named Hitler (it had one of those mustaches) that used to ride the ferries to different islands and would be recognized and brought home by customers. One day he got on the boat to Lavrion and never returned. Tzimis is now called Korissos but to people who have been here awhile it is still called Tzimis. They now have espresso and fredo capuccino. |
This is the fanciest restaurant in the port and where most people have their last meal on the island. Delicious roast pork and my favorite: chicken souvlaki wrapped in bacon. Some people will only eat in this restaurant. Good ouzo mezedes too. Yannis has been the chef here for a long time. In the summer they have live bouzoukia music on weekends. In the winter it is one of the few restaurants open and the action moves inside to become the archetype smokey Greek taverna that legends are made of. |
 Who would have guessed that when Adonis Paouris closed his bike shop and got rid of his ancient motorcycles that had people cursing his name all over the island, that he would discover his true talent in the small traditional taverna that took its place? His plan was simple: Clear out the motorbikes, scrub the building clean and decorate it with traditional art and old photos and bring in his mother to do the cooking. With great food, a quiet back street atmosphere and air-conditioning in the summer Sti Zoula is one of those hidden treasures that people who love Greece the way it used to be spend their lives searching for. Amazing meatballs, garlicky sadziki, beets and scordalia (garlic sauce), grilled local beef liver, and lots of local specialities as well as ouzo and mezedes, with old rembetika music playing in the background. To find it is simple. Its behind the bakery closest to the multi-storied Karthea Hotel in Korissia. Check out the photo of John, Paul, George and Ringo in Trikala in the late sixties. |
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One of three good reasons to go to Otzias. The other two reasons are the beach and the Taverna Otzias right down the road. Anna's is a little fancier and is open year-round. They serve delicious meat and fish dishes and vegetables too. They even have saligari (snails). Very cozy in the winter with the fire going. |
The best example of what a sea-side fish taverna should be. Fresh fish, grilled, fried or baked, and also plenty of meat dishes too. Try their Greek salad with Xino-tiri and their eggplant emam. Try their koukouvayo(owl) salad. It is not really made with owls. Its like a dakos or Cretan salad. This is one of my favorite restaurants in Kea especially for lunch. Its quiet most nights but go anyway. |
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One of my favorite places to eat is Philipos Psistaria in the port of Korissia right at the intersection of the road to Ioulida and the road to Vourkari. On weekends he usually roasts an entire pig but any night you can get paidakia, steaks, good wine that does not give you a hangover most of the time and a really terrific atmosphere. Don't let the picture scare you. This place is great from 10pm on. |
Yes it is Thalia again but this time she is in the port of Korissia in the tiny shop where she makes the traditional sweets of Kea and her homeland of Asia Minor. It is not really a restaurant but I had to put her in here because I had the space and frankly she deserves it. She is a very talented woman. Thalia got so tired of people coming to her ouzerie and asking for coffee that she opened a coffee shop in Vourkari that her son Giorgos runs. The cafe is called Thalia's too. Nice place for coffee and desert after dinner and also a fun place for young people to hang out. |
| The newest restaurant that we have discovered is called Vinylio. Its a wine bar on the terrace above the cafe-bar of the same name. Run by Greek-Englishman Nicholas, a trained european chef with family on the island, every night he serves several interesting pasta dishes that go along with his delicious salads and a long list of wines. We drank the xima from the Peloponessos, several karafes per person in fact and along with a roka salad with goat cheese and walnuts, I had a curry pasta with shrimp that was a great way to break my Greek food habit at least for a night. For those arriving on sailboats in Vourkari walk past the fancy fish restaurants at street level and at the end of the quay just before the road to Korissia, look to your left and go up the stairs. Terrific view of the bay and being above the street traffic, especially in August, has its merits. | |
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Lagoudera is one of the first restaurants you will come to when you get off the ferry. They serve a large variety of cooked dishes and really interesting salads and pitas (pies) especially their kremidopita (onion pie), rivithia (chickpea stew) and grilled meats. This is also the best place to eat when you are leaving the island because you can wait til the last possible moment and just cross the street to get on the ferry as they bring up the ramp. |
In Spathi there is a nice taverna on the beach called Kaikas that is usually open in July and August. Kalomira is on the turn-off to Otzias just beyond Vourkari on the left. If you need proof that this is a good restaurant let me tell you that famed chef Aglaia Kremezi has the farewell dinners for her cooking seminars here and its also where the ducks hang out.... In Koundoros right as you enter the 'town' there is a sign that leads you to a fancy cafe-restaurant right on the peninsula with great food and a really nice swimming spot on the paved rocks below. I think it is called Cavo Punto or something like that... there are also two pizza places in Ioulida on the road to the Lion. Akrogiali in Pisses is a nice little beach taverna with simple food and friendly service and its a great place to watch the sunset or take a later afternoon swim. Christoforo Taverna, also on the beach at Pisses serves traditional food from Kea and like most restaurants is family run and friendly. New restaurants seem to be opening every summer so if you see one that I have not listed it does not mean that its not any good. It may just mean I have not been there yet. But I will get there eventually. |
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