Where to eat near Chania

This blog does not usually feature restaurant reviews. But – inspired perhaps by the presence of Fay Maschler on the same plane back from Athens – I thought I’d venture to share with you a couple of my favourite, regular eateries near Chania.

In fact, we had a number of memorable meals while we were in Crete. One extraordinary evening involved dining in an inland village restaurant…a single table was already laid up for us in the road in front of the  church as we drove in, and the lamb chops were already cooking on the brazier, and a feast followed. As one of my Greek friends said, it felt a bit like a scene in an Italian movie.

But for regular re-fuelling we went either to the restaurant in our village, or on the beach. Both of them must count as “unspoilt” (no glossy pictures of the food propped up outside, no man stationed in the road to entrap the passing tourist)…both have been going strong, to my knowledge, for 20 years. Both are in easy reach of Chania by car.

The first is in Tsikalaria, just a few miles outside Chania, off the road leading to Souda. It isn’t honestly much to look at: an open terrace with a do-it-yourself roof, and an inside  room for when it’s cold. But it has a stupendous view right over Souda Bay (we would watch the huge ferryboat chug out for Athens at 9 o’clock every night) and at the right time of year the swallows parade on the telephone wires that run by the terrace teaching their rather dopey young to fly.

The restaurant’s called “To Kouneli”, or “The Rabbit”. Our children used to think that this was a charming Bugs Bunny sort of title. In fact it refers to one of the establishment’s specialities. (They also used to think that the animals in the field across the road were part of a zoo – rather than a collection of what would sooner or later end up on a plate.)

Not everything the menu promises is on offer each night, but you can regularly get delicious meat (not just rabbit, but lamb and pork too) and a whole range of Cretan goodies. We always went for the “horta” (wild or garden greens), “mizithra” (soft sheep or goat’s cheese, a bit like ricotta), and the “kalitsounakia” (little cheese and spinach pies), and the wonderful cheese-topped chips. I also have particular liking for “staka”. This comes hot and tastes like soft melted cheese. Actually I discovered last week that it was pure sheep’s cream, lightly fried…enough cholesterol to last a lifetime.

Anyway for three of us, we usually had more than we could eat and drink (good local wine) for less than 30 euros for the whole lot.

The other is the restaurant on the beach – Kiani Akti – where we went after a good morning’s work. This beach is on the way from Chania to the English colonies of Kalives and Almirida. But – apart from one large and dreadfully ugly new hotel (happily not visible from our bit of the beach) – it is still a Greek family beach, just as it has been for decades – nicely equipped with restaurant, looking over the sand (enabling kids to be watched while parents continue consuming).

In addition to the other options, here you can get tremendous fish. Heaven knows what sort it is (fish names, for me, are completely baffling in any foreign language . . ) and it changes from day to day. But it is all wonderful – especially, in my view, with the “kolokithakia” (that is the fried  courgettes).

Fish is pricier than meat. But even pigging out on more that you can eat, plus drinks etc, it would be hard to spend more than 60 euros for three.

Comments

[Colin Lester]

MB, I wonder if there's still a yoghurt seller in a shack just back from the coast road near the start of the long straight stretch as you begin to near Rethymnon? About 15 big pots, each with a different type, most sheep's, delicious! -- especially with the mountain-herb honey that's sold from barrels in the back village shops, spooned into your empty jar til it runs down the side... Why did I ever leave?

Oh yes -- the stomach.

[Tony Francis]

Dearest Foska: Your recent post sounds like a fish story to me.

[boredacademic]

"no man stationed in the road to entrap the passing tourist"

or "spruiker" to use a useful Australian noun for such persons

[SW Foska]

Michael, the hellenicity of that particular ichthyonym is disputatious, as it is to be met with in most points between Cape Matapan and Sczeczin. The etymology is Slav but Magyars (pisztrang) and Romanians (pastrav) also deploy variants, so if you ever venture across the Rhodope Mts., your lexicographical diligence will repay itself.

[Tony Francis]

If you head north out of Los Angeles, there are some great restaurants on the Pacific Coast Highway. One is Neptune's Net north of Malibu and South of Point Magu. My father got me going to that place. They used to have a great Barricuda steak. But that seems to have been taken off the menu. Their website has a cool song, though. Another, more expensive place the Sunset Restaurant in Malibu. They have a nice website, as well. San Francisco has more great restaurants than any other city in the world - at least one on every block. Las Vegas used to have some eateries where you could get all you could eat for $5 - $7. In my old days as an editor, I used to work out of Las Vegas and San Francisco. Cleopatra's Barge in Caesar's Palace was a great place to get a drink. The most beautiful girls in the world would walk by. It was an endless cavalcade. Someone told me they were nurses, teachers, etc from Phoenix and Los Angeles who flew in for the weekend to pick up a little extra cash and some coke. I never talked to any of them- just looked.
Salina Kansas had the greatest truckstop in the world: Russell's Restaurant. Alas, the owner sold it, and the food went downhill. Paris had a lot of great restaurants, but I never got used to the dog shit under the tables.
Paulo: Here are some jokes. Concerning your mention of spiders without legs: What do you call a dog with no legs? It doesn't matter, because it won't come anyway.
What do you get if you mix Italian Art and Jewish Insanity? Las Vegas.

[Paul Potts]

Mary

May I suggest some party games based on your on blogs? They will have to be designed to fit the company of course.

1 What is the best/worst meal you have ever eaten? Where, when, what, who? You have three minutes. Or perhaps Describe a restaurant meal that you can remember.

I know it's boring, but the best meals I've ever eaten were in Algeria. Swordfish on the coast, with very fresh salad and a hardboiled egg cooked to perfection. (I can tell you how to do that, if you're interested.) The worst two were both in the US. In one case, they actually brought doggy bags before the meal.

2. What nationality were (choose one), Haendel, D Scarlatti, Jonathan Swift, T S Eliot, Homer, Queen Victoria .......... etc.

3. What is the best/worst musical or theatrical performance you have ever been to? In my case, the best were all amateur. The worst was a performance of Lohengrin in London. Pace Beecham, Wagner's music is not as good as it sounds.

I'll go on if you like.

Paulo

[richard lilley]

How perfectly evocative Prof, quite cheered me up on a day on which it has rained in London for a solid 24 hours..sed influere penitus atque ambire, et iugis etiam ac montibus inseri velut suo..as Tacitus commented on water and the national character! Do love your blog and will await with interest anything you have to say about the rather, shall we say, revisionist, take on the remarkable Hadrian at the BM.

[Michael Bulley]

I've been caught out with Greek fish names too. A few years ago, I drove from Thessalonika to Psarades, the last village in northwest Greece, by the Prespa lakes, arriving in the evening. I had been told you could eat varieties of fish there, fresh from the lake, that you wouldn't find anywhere else. So I settled down in a restaurant and was told by the waitress that the fish of the day was "pestropha", caught that very morning. I didn't know what that was in English, so I wrote it down. The next day, I consulted my dictionary and found it was - trout!

[Mark Thwaite]

Best food I've ever eaten was in Crete. God knows, even the rough looking Taverna things on the tourist drags do you better scran than most "decent" restaurants here in Blighty.

I'm hungry now!

[Anna]

Very nice. I've had some memorably enjoyable meals in Greece too. Are you going to comment on the Hadrian exhibition at the BM? Am thinking of going and would welcome your thoughts on it. Times amusingly got the Pantheon mixed up with the Parthenon in an article publicising it a few weeks ago.