Paxos stuffing
Meze, olives, beef, octopus, pork, tuna, salad and even broth made by monks, Tim Bentinck succumbs to some...
IN 1885, Archduke Ludwig Salvator wrote of the Greek island of Paxos: ‘At the taverns, tripe, heads and feet from sheep, goats and cattle are prepared. Fried whitebait, meat with celery and potatoes, green beans, peas, chickpeas, broad beans as well as greens with garlic and oil, and much red pepper, are eaten.’
More than a century later, you can still find such fare on the island (though perhaps not so many heads or feet), but these days there’s a whole lot more in Paxos to savour.
According to some, ‘you don’t go to Greece for the food’, but that depends on your tastes. The Mediterranean diet of fish, salad, olive oil and wine is the one recommended for a healthy heart, and although Greece comes below Ireland in life-expectancy rankings, that may have more to do with the smoking than the food. I’m a sucker for a plate of meze, a glass or two of red, and a huge pile of whitebait, so I would have liked to have been at the archduke’s side as he toured the island by foot for 18 months, recording and drawing everything he saw.
His book, Paxos And Antipaxos, is extraordinary. Ludwig gave out 100-page questionnaires to all the village elders and records diet, occupation, administration, taxation, geography, history, architecture, politics and more.
These things may seem irrelevant as you bask in the glorious sunshine and warm, clear waters, but while so much is unchanged, one thing is very different.
‘There are no vehicles on Paxos,’ Ludwig notes with admiration. The road-builders who upgraded the island’s donkey tracks clearly did not set the bar very high and anyone accustomed to one-track country roads will experience familiar frustrations here, driving their tiny hire cars at the oncoming Alfa Romeos that treat the narrow lanes like their own personal race-tracks.
On a previous visit we hired an underpowered scooter, which we took back after a day. Labouring to get the two of us around a nearvertical hairpin, we encountered the Gaios to Loggos bus needing the full width of the road as it hurtled down the hill.
This year I noticed two-seater, side-by-side quad bikes, or ATVs. They look like a whole lot of fun, and are the perfect size for the island roads.
Paxos is not large. One morning we rented a little vessel from Julia’s Boat Hire at Loggos, and would have circumnavigated the island by lunchtime if we hadn’t pootled around, stopping to snorkel and explore caves, then pull up the awning, have a delicious meal and lie on the deck, dreaming of vast yachts with Bond-style radar domes and docked subs between the twin hulls. Then one such beast came past, clearly in pursuit of a super-villain, and the wash nearly bounced us clean into the water.
The west side of the island features huge cliffs and few beaches but caves and very deep water for spectacular diving.
From the boat we could see our lovely Villa Gardinia, a quiet one-bedroom retreat with pool
and breathtaking views. Bliss. As we passed the Erimitis cliffs, my wife Judy remembered reading about a restaurant there, which boasted brilliant sunsets and wonderful food, so we thought we’ d investigate. On the drive back to our villa, we turned down a tiny track and bounced along the ever deteriorating surface until, improbably, we came upon a modern, chic, expansive outdoor restaurant, with added art gallery, and the most beautiful view of the imposing cliffs and incipient sunset. We booked a table for the following evening. The owner is Martha, 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 holidaymakers 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 – through to the larger Lakka, with shops, bars and water-skiing and the lively and the 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 anyone who wants a bit of calm, while still offering plenty to do, Paxos is an island of gentleness in a Mediterranean sea of troubles.