Paxos stuffing
Meze, olives, beef, octopus, pork, tuna, salad and even broth made by monks, Tim Bentinck succumbs to some...
evening. The owner is Martha from Oxford, who came for a holiday 17 years ago, married a local and built a restaurant.
You won’t find your typical Greek fare here. Starting with two carpaccios (beef for Judy, octopus for me), we were then surprised and delighted to find the main course substantial, delicious and not expensive. None of your overpriced nouvelle cuisine which could grace the walls of an art gallery but not feed two hungry sailors.
Judy had red tuna, I had pork. There’s something about eating atop a cliff as the sun sets that makes anything taste delicious, but this was exceptional. There’s a lovely beach below too. A romantic selfie for our 38th wedding anniversary shows a happy and well-sated couple.
THIS was our fifth visit to Paxos and the first time we’d come across real haute cuisine on the island. There are other establishments now that go beyond the standard fare, including a delightful, though pricier, fish bar and restaurant on the harbour front in Lakka called Akis, and any number of waterside taverns at the harbour in Gaios that cater for the August visitations of promenading Italians.
Even though Paxos has changed since the Archduke wandered the olive groves so long ago, the essence of the place remains the same. No huge hotels, no sprawling developments, sandy beaches on Antipaxos and pebbly ones on the main island. This is not a party island of swarming Brits and raves (or, if it is, we oldies missed the craic). The three main villages (towns would sound too large) vary from the sleepy harbour of Loggos – a delightful mixture of small boats, tavernas and beautiful art exhibitions and classical music in the Old Schoolhouse – through the larger Lakka, with shops, bars and water-skiing, to the lively and more sophisticated capital of Gaios, where on August evenings you could almost be in Monaco.
On August 15 we were invited by friends to take a boat across from Gaios to the island of Panagia, where for one day the monastery is open to all for the national holiday of Assumption Day. The ritual and boundless hospitality would have been familiar to the Archduke, the offered broth would have tasted the same, and the day was such a contrast to any contemporary sense of modernity or glamour.
The name Paxos derives from the Phoenician word for ‘trapezoidal’, but a more appropriate origin would be the Latin ‘pax’ – for the essence of the place is peace.
Great for couples and families who want a bit of calm, while still offering plenty to do, Paxos is an island of gentleness in a Mediterranean sea of troubles.