Best Restaurants in South Crete and Rethymno: A Curated Local Guide
The best meals in South Crete are rarely the ones you planned. They are the ones where you sat down somewhere small, ordered whatever was in the pot, and two hours later found yourself wondering why you hadn't come sooner.
The restaurants in this guide are ones we know, have eaten in, and recommend without hesitation — not as the definitive list of everything worth eating in the region, but as a starting point for those who want to eat well rather than just conveniently.
A note before we begin: the best taverna you eat in on this coast may well be one without a website, without a sign, and without a single review on any platform. Ask the person who rents you your villa, ask the fisherman at the harbour, ask the woman selling tomatoes at the roadside. In Crete, the most reliable recommendation is always a local one. This guide is our version of exactly that.
In the mountains and the hill villages
To Sideradiko – Spili
The name means The Old Forge, and the building was one: a traditional smithy on the edge of Spili that Nikos converted into a taverna and filled with Cretan artefacts, fresh flowers outside, and the smell of whatever is cooking on any given day. And what is cooking changes daily, because there is no printed menu. Nikos — who starts in the kitchen at four in the morning, whose family farms the land that produces much of what you eat — takes you into the kitchen when you arrive and shows you the pots. Stifado, slow-braised lamb, baked chicken, spanakopita, papoutsakia — the selection shifts with the season and the week. The pork, from the family's own farm, is what the regulars come back for. After the meal, yoghurt with homemade preserves and a glass of Nikos's own raki arrive without being requested. They are very good.
To Sideradiko is on the left side of the main road through Spili heading toward Agia Galini — almost the last building on the edge of the village. It is easy to drive past without noticing it, which is why the people who know about it feel slightly proprietary. If you are driving between the south coast and Rethymno, this is the lunch stop.
Plateia Myrthios — Myrthios
The village of Myrthios sits directly above Plakias on the hillside, close enough to see the bay below and far enough from it to feel entirely removed from the coastal bustle. The square at its centre — shaded, unhurried, with a view of the entire Plakias bay and the coastline east toward Damnoni — is one of the better places to eat dinner in this part of the south coast, and the taverna on the square is the reason.
Traditional Cretan cooking, generous portions, honest prices, and a panorama that improves steadily through the evening as the light changes over the bay. The drive up the narrow road is short. The table on the terrace facing the sea is the one to ask for. The locals recommend it, which is the only endorsement that matters here.
Nostos – Melampes
Melambes is a village in the hills above the south coast that most visitors pass through without stopping. Nostos is the reason to stop. Run by Giotta and Lefteris — a couple whose warmth is as consistent as the food — it occupies the village square and offers the kind of meal that is difficult to describe precisely because the pleasure of it is cumulative: the welcome, the house wine, the unhurried pace, the sense that you have found somewhere that exists entirely for the people eating in it rather than for the tourism industry.
The cooking is traditional Cretan — hearty, seasonal, made from local ingredients, served in quantities that assume you are hungry. Giotta and Lefteris between them have been making sure guests do not leave hungry for long enough that the village square feels like their living room extended outward.
Mezeraki – Klima
The village of Klima, a handful of streets and olive groves between Timbaki and the coast, is not on any tourist circuit. Mezeraki, run by Soula and her husband, is not on any review platform worth mentioning. These two facts are related, and both are reasons to go.
There is a menu. But Soula’s husband loves to cook what he has decided to cook that day — traditional Cretan dishes made from local ingredients, honest in the way that only a kitchen answering to nobody in particular can be. You arrive, you sit down in the simple, rustic dining room or on the street outside, and you discover what dinner is today. This is either exactly what you want from a meal in South Crete or it isn't — and if it is, Mezeraki will be one of the meals you remember.
Soula is very kind. The prices are honest. The atmosphere is as unaffected as the cooking. A few kilometres from Phaistos, Kommos, and the Messara plain, it is the kind of place that rewards guests of Villa Ilisio and Saitis Home who have learned to move slowly enough to find it.
On the south coast
Onar – Agia Galini
By the harbour in Agia Galini, Onar is the reliable answer to the question of where to eat dinner when the fishing boats are coming in and you want to be near the water. Greek and Mediterranean food, carefully prepared, presented with more consideration than most harbour restaurants in this part of the coast. Fresh seafood, good salads, and a view of the sea that improves steadily as the evening progresses. Refined but never pretentious — which is, in Crete, the correct balance.
Excellent — Medousa is clearly exceptional. A 4.9 on Restaurant Guru, consistently described as the finest dining in Plakias, run by Nikos with a modern Cretan approach that sets it apart from every other taverna in town. Here's the entry to slot into the Plakias section, alongside the Plateia Myrthios entry:
Balloon Bar – Agia Galini
Not strictly a restaurant, but too good to omit. The Balloon Bar, run by brothers Manolis and Nikos on the harbour front, is the kind of place that does everything well enough that you stop questioning what it is: breakfast, coffee, fresh juices, long lunches, cocktails, late dinners. It is open later than almost anywhere else in the village and the kitchen is good. The terrace faces the harbour. On a warm evening with the fishing boats visible and the last of the light on the water, there are worse places to be.
Medousa – Plakias
Medousa occupies a quiet street just back from the seafront in Plakias — easy to walk past, impossible to forget once you have eaten there. Run by Nikos, who manages the front of house with the kind of warm professionalism that makes a dinner feel personally arranged rather than commercially transacted, it is the restaurant in Plakias that rises above the harbour strip entirely.
The cooking is modern Cretan — traditional ingredients and recipes approached with a contemporary sensibility, beautifully presented, and served in a dining room with linen on the tables and a level of care in the details that most tavernas in this price bracket do not attempt. The sheep carpaccio, the seafood pasta, the grilled fish from the daily catch — the menu shifts with the season and what is available, and the kitchen has the confidence to follow that logic rather than offering a fixed roster of tourist favourites. The wine list is genuinely good. Complimentary rakomelo arrives at the end of the meal.
Medousa fills up in high season. Book ahead.
Taverna Apanemia – Triopetra
The small beach at Triopetra — the eastern, sheltered cove behind the three rocks — has a cluster of tavernas that face the bay and the open sea beyond. Apanemia is the one that earns its reputation on the food rather than the setting, though the setting is very good. Traditional Cretan cooking, fresh fish, grilled octopus, local wine. The kind of taverna where you arrive for lunch and realise, somewhere around the second carafe, that you are not going anywhere for a while. This is not a problem.
Traditional Restaurant Imeros – Lagolio
A quieter countryside option in the village of Lagolio, beloved by locals for its honest preparation of regional dishes and the kind of unhurried service that suggests nobody is in any particular hurry to turn the table. The right choice for those who want to eat well away from the harbour and the beach, in a setting that is entirely without tourism infrastructure and entirely better for it.
Aleko’s Fish Tavern – Near Kommos Beach
On the cliffs between the village of Pitsidia and Matala, above the protected beach of Kommos, Aleko's has built its reputation on the quality of its seafood and the directness of its approach. You choose your fish from the counter when you arrive — whatever came in that morning — and it goes to the kitchen. Tuna, sea bass, anchovies, octopus, the daily catch from the Libyan Sea. House raki and fruit at the end of the meal arrive without fanfare. The terrace looks out over the entire Messara Bay toward the Paximadia Islands, and the sunset from here, looking west over open water, is one of the best along this stretch of coast. As we cover in our guide to Kommos beach, the cliffs above the beach produce two of the finest dinner views on the south coast. Mystical View, Aleko's neighbour on the same clifftop, shares the panorama.
Scala – Matala
Matala is an easy place to eat average food. The harbour is lined with restaurants that exist primarily because tourists arrive hungry after a morning at the beach, and the quality reflects that arrangement. Scala is an exception — a restaurant at the edge of the bay that takes its food seriously enough to stand apart from the strip. Mediterranean cuisine with a contemporary sensibility, thoughtful presentation, a wine list that goes beyond the house carafe. The right choice for an evening in Matala that rises above the beach-day default, or for anyone who wants something slightly more considered after an afternoon at Kommos. Pairs naturally with a walk through the cliff caves above the beach before the sun goes down.
Rethymno
A drive north from the south coast brings you to one of the finest small cities in Crete — and one of the most rewarding dining destinations on the island. Rethymno's Venetian old town, with its narrow alleys and Ottoman fountains and crumbling loggia, rewards an evening spent walking before dinner. These are our recommendations for where to eat when you get there.
Avli
Avli was established in 1987 by Katerina Xekalou in a beautifully restored Venetian mansion, and it has spent nearly four decades building a reputation that now extends well beyond Crete. The courtyard, draped with vines and lit for evening dining, is the most atmospheric setting in Rethymno. The kitchen — which describes itself as creative rustic Cretan — works with exceptional local ingredients: wine from small producers, olive oil from the surrounding region, meat and produce from farms in the hinterland. The rabbit with buckwheat is the dish most often mentioned by regulars. The wine list is serious. The prices are at the higher end of what Rethymno charges, and worth it. Book ahead in summer — Avli fills up, and for good reason.
Asikiko
At the foot of the Neratze Mosque — one of the most striking Ottoman monuments in Rethymno's old town, its minaret rising above the surrounding rooftops — sits a restaurant that does something distinct from everything else in the neighbourhood. Asikiko takes Cretan cuisine and applies a contemporary, faintly oriental sensibility to it: gamopilafo, the traditional Cretan wedding rice cooked in goat's milk, sits alongside black risotto with shrimp, feta in sesame crust, and slow-cooked beef dishes that borrow from the wider eastern Mediterranean without abandoning the Cretan larder they started from.
The atmosphere is lively in the way that a restaurant in a good location with genuinely good food becomes lively: busy most evenings, with music setting a pace that is energetic without becoming intrusive, and a room that mixes locals and visitors in roughly equal proportion — usually a reliable indicator of something worth eating. The service is warm and attentive, and the kitchen sends out complimentary starters and a local liquor at the end of the meal with the kind of generosity that makes an already good evening feel slightly better.
The orange pie with raki ice cream is the dessert. Order it without overthinking it.
1600 Raki Ba Raki
Avli's sister restaurant occupies a narrow alleyway in the old town, with tables spilling onto the lane under hand-painted glass lights and antique furniture. Where Avli is a special occasion, Raki Ba Raki is an animated evening — the rakadiko version of the same philosophy: seasonal Cretan ingredients, imaginative preparation, but in smaller meze plates designed for sharing rather than set courses. Slow-cooked lamb with yoghurt, shrimp saganaki, homemade pork sausages, hot feta with figs. The raki is good. The atmosphere, particularly on a summer night when the alleyway is full and music drifts out from the bar inside, is one of those Cretan evenings that are difficult to replicate elsewhere. If Avli is full — and it often is — Raki Ba Raki is not a consolation prize.
Bakalogatos
The name refers to the old neighbourhood grocery stores of Greece, and the spirit of the place reflects that — generous portions, quality ingredients, honest prices, outdoor tables on a lively street in the heart of the old town. The lamb chops and sea bream are the standouts, and complimentary doughnuts at the end of the meal are the kind of touch that keeps people coming back. Livelier and more relaxed than Avli, and excellent value for the location. Locals eat here, which is the most reliable endorsement available.
Worth the drive north
For those willing to extend a day trip into Chania or Heraklion, two restaurants justify the journey.
Maiami – Chania
Maiami occupies a 1950s building in the Koum Kapi district, a short walk east along the seafront from the Venetian harbour. It is the creation of Alexandra Manousakis — artist, winemaker, daughter of the American family behind Manousakis Winery — and her partner Afshin Molavi, and it is immediately unlike anywhere else on the island. The interior is hung with Alexandra's paintings and ceramics. The menu ranges across Greek, Persian, Italian, and Jamaican influences with the confidence of people who have eaten widely and cooked carefully: shirazi salad with mizithra, lentil dal, the salsicca pizza that several reviewers describe as the best on the island. The wines come from the Manousakis estate. Go for the atmosphere as much as the food — the seafront terrace on a summer evening, with the light on the water and music playing, is one of those Chania experiences that stays with you.
Tempelis – Heraklion
Kafeneio O Tempelis is the Heraklion restaurant that visitors to Knossos should plan lunch around. A warm, village-like interior in the city centre, a menu rooted in traditional Cretan cooking — smoked lamb, risotto with cheese and yoghurt, slow-cooked dishes that reward the kitchen's patience. The atmosphere is communal and relaxed, the service genuinely friendly. Not the place for a quiet romantic dinner, but the place for a generous, convivial lunch with people who want to eat well and not think too carefully about it. Exactly the right register for the middle of a day spent among Minoans.
Phyllosophies – Heraklion
There is a question that divides opinion in Heraklion, asked in cafés and argued over coffee with the conviction usually reserved for football: Kir-Kor or Phyllosophies? Both sit within a few metres of the Morosini Fountain — the Lion Fountain — at the heart of the old city. Both have been making bougatsa for over a hundred years. The debate is genuine and you are welcome to conduct your own research.
Our answer, without equivocation: Phyllosophies.
Established in 1922 by Apostolos Salkintzis, a refugee who arrived in Heraklion from Asia Minor and began selling bougatsa from a small shop near the square, the place has been run by his descendants ever since. The phyllo is made fresh and visible — watching the dough being pulled and layered is part of the experience — and the range of fillings goes well beyond the classic sweet and savoury divide: bougatsa with Cretan myzithra, local honey and walnuts is the house invention that most regulars order first and think about longest. The coffee is good. The terrace faces the fountain and the bustle of the square directly, which makes it one of the better places in Heraklion to do nothing in particular for an hour.
If you are visiting Knossos or the Archaeological Museum — both covered in the STAYS Journal — Phyllosophies is the natural start to the day or the natural end to it. It is not dinner. It is not even lunch. It is the thing that makes Heraklion feel like a city worth arriving in rather than merely passing through.
A personal note
As a STAYS guest, the best thing you can do before choosing where to eat on any given evening is ask us. We know which places are having a good season, which ones to avoid in high August when the crowds change the experience, and which taverna in which village is the one locals actually go to rather than the one Google recommends.
Tell us what you are in the mood for — a long fish lunch by the water, a mountain village dinner, a special occasion in Rethymno's old town, the kind of place where nobody speaks English and the menu is written on a blackboard that changes daily — and we will point you in the right direction. That is, in our experience, how the best meals in South Crete begin.
Our Home Collection places you within easy reach of all the restaurants in this guide. For those still planning their base, our guide to where to stay in South Crete covers how the different areas of the coast compare — and which one puts you closest to the coast, the mountains, or the road north to Rethymno.
