For the table
W Costa Navarino
Navarino Bay · Messinia
The first W in Greece sits right on the sand in Navarino Bay, on the Ionian coast of the southwest Peloponnese. It wears its luxury lightly — barefoot, social, easy to read — which is exactly the point.
Opened in 2022, it is the relaxed end of the Costa Navarino destination: an adults-friendly "Escape" tuned to couples, friends and families with guests aged twelve and up. The 226 rooms, suites and villas run along the bay in a low, contemporary palette, many of them with swim-up or private pools and the water a few steps away. Condé Nast Traveler readers named it the only European resort in their 2023 Top 50 in the world — a vote less for grandeur than for the ease of the place.
The real reason to come is the food, and it is in serious hands. Executive chef Nikos Billis — who trained through Noma, De Librije and Botrini's before coming home — cooks Messinia rather than imports a style to it: local, seasonal, modern Mediterranean without the ceremony. His remit runs across the beachfront Parelia and its sharing plates, the street-food souvlaki of Tsikna, the open-fire grill at Piqantro Iberica and the all-day W Lounge. In summer the kitchen opens the sand to visiting Michelin chefs for a run of open-fire dinners.
Plenty of resorts this polished take themselves too seriously. This one doesn't — and then quietly out-cooks most of them. It earns its place on the plate, not the pose.
