Above the crowds, in Pyrgos
Selene is the restaurant that put Santorini's own produce, fava, white aubergine, cherry tomato, on a serious table long before the island filled with sunset bars. It now keeps to the hill village of Pyrgos, inland and quiet, away from the caldera crush.
It is a pioneer that still means it, on an island increasingly sold as a backdrop rather than a place.
Volcanic ground
The cooking draws on volcanic-soil produce and the island's small growers, Cycladic ingredients handled with intent rather than turned into a show. Fava, capers, the famous tomato, treated as the point rather than the garnish.
A quiet counter-argument to everything Santorini has become, made from the ground the island stands on.
A table about the place, not the backdrop.
The rare Santorini restaurant that is about the island itself. Go in the shoulder season, for the calm.
VANE selection. Chosen with a critic's eye and judged independently. It's here because we judged it, not because it paid. This is a researched profile, not yet a first-hand VANE verdict; where we have eaten there, the review says so.
On the island: our Santorini travel and food guide, where to eat and when to go.
Image: Setting, Pyrgos village, Santorini. Photo: Bernard Gagnon, Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)
