Sifnos, at the Table

The island's food reputation is older than any menu. This is the birthplace of Nikolaos Tselementes, the Sifnian who wrote the first great modern Greek cookbook, and the taste of the place still runs through the chickpea stew slow-baked overnight in a clay pot, the soft mastelo cheese, the local pottery in which almost everything is cooked. The range begins, though, at the shore.

At Platys Gialos, with the sea almost at your feet, Yalos is the most modern moment of the trip. The chef Manolis Monogios works a Mediterranean kitchen with fresh fish and clean, contemporary technique: ceviche, octopus with chickpeas, tuna tataki, a fish carpaccio you remember. Elegant, easy, coastal, right for a slow lunch or a dinner as the light drops over the bay.

On the far side of the island, in picturesque Vathi, Okeanida sets its tables almost in the water. The cooking here is traditional Sifnian, fresh fish and local recipes, in the quietest and most sheltered little bay on the island. You come for the wave beside the plate and for the taste of a place that is in no hurry.

Up in the medieval Kastro, To Astro is one of the oldest tables on the island, family-run and genuine. Home cooking and seafood, octopus with olives, lamb with anise, soutzoukakia, local chickpea fritters, fried calamari. The frying is light, never oily, cooking that smells of a house, set in the alleys of a settlement that seems stopped in time.

In Artemonas, the island's stately village, Angeles keeps the plain, honest side. A simple room, friendly service, prices that are fair for the quality and the quantity, and two things that made its name: the good meat and the cheese pie. The kind of place you look for to eat well without fuss.

Down at Kamares, the port where the ferry ties up, Passione is the pizzeria of the group, a relaxed stop for a pizza beside the water, after the beach or before the boat. A little further along, still in Kamares, 3Gyro Sifnos holds the street-food corner: gyros and wraps for the hours when you want something quick, tasty and cheap, without losing time from the sea.

For the sweet, in Artemonas, Kitrino Podilato, the Yellow Bicycle, is an institution. Giorgos Psaraftis, born and raised on Sifnos, makes traditional pastries scented with fresh butter, loukoumades with honey or chocolate, mille-feuille, profiteroles, crème brûlée, and ice cream, some of the flavours his own. A sweet shop with character, the kind that tempts you whatever hour you pass.

And I close where the island shows its most tender story: at Krypti, in the Kastro, next to the walls. Marialena studied plant production, but from a child she wanted one single thing, to open this shop and sell loukoumades. She did it in an old cellar that belonged to her grandfather, a scrap of a space, out of which come the fluffiest loukoumades I have tasted. She serves them traditionally, with honey and cinnamon, or with chocolate and ice cream. She also sells liqueur her mother makes, and even beeswax salves. A place that is not simply for eating something sweet; it is a whole story of persistence, tucked into the stone of the Kastro.