A feast for the senses in Aliki harbour

Even though the day started off grey and rainy, it ended with a spectacular finale for all the senses in Aliki harbour. After a stroll through Antiparos in the rain, the evening concluded with a magnificent sunset and plenty of culinary delights during a convivial dinner.

After a short hike to the Tripiti rock bridge, we refreshed ourselves with a quick dip in the sea at Aliki’s Agios Nikolaos beach, before heading over to the harbour promenade for the sunset and dinner.

The octopuses hanging in plain sight in front of the restaurant’s kitchen window are less for decoration and more for drying in the sun. This is a traditional method of preserving the octopus for later use. This method also makes the meat more tender and intensifies the flavour. It is common practice in many of Greece’s coastal communities. The dried octopus is then used in various dishes at the restaurant – boiled, grilled, fried or in salads.

Our choice for dinner, the restaurant To Balconi, was another recommendation: it has a good reputation for fresh food, especially fish dishes, and certainly lived up to expectations. Above all, it boasts the best location: with tables right on the stone quay by the water and an idyllic panorama of the harbour and Aliki bay – a front-row seat at twilight.

As is common in many restaurants, we were able to choose the fish for our meal ourselves. To do this, we went to the kitchen, where a large selection of different freshly caught fish species was waiting in the fridge – such as sea bream, red mullet, sardines or sea bass – along with a head chef who was up for a joke.

We started the meal with all sorts of typical local starters: fried vegetables and feta cheese, fava (yellow split pea purée), anchovies (salted and fermented) or taramosalata (salted and cured fish roe), until the grilled fish were filleted and served directly at the table by expert staff.

We enjoyed a delicious white wine with it, which almost passed for a rosé in the reddish glow of the twilight – Jámas!

So ended a varied day full of unexpected impressions and experiences. As the weather was now improving, we were set to go on our planned boat trip in Naoussa Bay the following day.