Thanks to a friend whose first love is Paros (and second home the same), I’ve been enjoying this Greek island for about seven years now.
In Naoussa, the restaurants and bars continue to evolve with mainstays and newcomers sitting side by side, capturing the attention of residents, regular visitors and travellers alike.
As the centre continues to live its best life as an aesthetically- pleasing hub of cocktail bars, restaurants and bohemian boutiques aplenty, my eye was caught this year by a beach-side (relative) newcomer.
RADA restaurant ‘boasts traditional Mediterranean dishes and modern fusion food’, with a menu by Greek chef, Gikas Xenakis.
The website challenges you to
Experience a redefinition of Cycladic gastronomy
and also promises
A space to be enjoyed.
Well full marks on both, I say.
Enjoying a play on words and seemingly unable to bypass a pun, I also say ‘RADA – with none of the drama but all of the taste’ (you can have that one on me)…
Whilst intrigued by a menu which promised an imaginative series of dishes which did indeed appear to marry traditional local flavours with a fresh and innovative approach, I was there for the sunset and promise of an intimate dining experience.
My heart was won by the latter before a mere morsel had passed my lips.
Approaching the restaurant via a quiet lane with the ocean to your left, you cross the sandy gardens via a decked path, to find a series of tables and sofas amongst the trees and foliage.
Booked in for dinner at 8pm, we’d timed our experience to take us from the close of another gloriously hot day into the setting of the sun at 8.44pm (to be ridiculously precise).
Our table gave us the perfect vantage point to enjoy the ever changing palette of colours as the sun descended amidst its beach setting, casting shadows and silhouettes of boats in the distance, botany in the foreground.
It was as though the chef had not only designed a menu that took you on a gastronomic journey with every course, but delivered a different backdrop for each.
The menu is divided into Raw, Mezze, Greens, Fire and Sweet, and fairly easy to navigate. The overexcitable heathens that we are, we’d already spent time pouring over it online to decide what we’d like but there are plenty of lovely and attentive servers on hand to assist and guide you through.
We basked in the golden hour of the fading light as we enjoyed pre-dinner cocktails- Watermelon Mule and a Melon Tommy, – accompanied by a basket of warm toasted bread, with olives.
Close behind came our starters of Squid – battered squid with beetroot marmalade, fish roe cream with squid ink & fennel; and Mussels – steamed mussels, saffron & fresh cilantro .
Both delicately flavoured – size isn’t everything but the mussels were the largest we’d enjoyed and the saffron brought a really pleasing flavour to the plentiful dish. The squid was lightly battered, again plentiful and tastefully presented.
As the light continued to cast everything in the best Instagram filter you could imagine, our appetites were technically satisfied before the wine was opened. But our eyes thanked us as the mains were brought to the table.
Natural light waning by this point, table lamp on, the main dishes arrived and any thoughts of full tummies cast off.
We each chose a chicken dish – Paccheri
with chicken, sage & crispy bacon, was thick tubular pasta and, with the addition of carrot, the flavours of which took me straight back to Sunday lunches with my grandparents.
Be without doubt that this is a compliment – comforting, nostalgic but innovative and delivered in a way I’d never experienced.
My husband chose the chicken breast with corn, mushrooms & sauce from ‘gruyere cheese of Naxos’. What’s mine is his but, more importantly, what’s his is mine and I took it upon myself to make sure his tasted good too. It did – that sauce – forgive the vulgarity but I could have drunk a bowlful. Flavoursome but not overpowering. Creamy but not rich. The ingredients classic, the execution contemporary and stylish.
And yes we took one for the team – one pudding, two spoons,
It was somewhat a Snickers, Jim, but certainly NOT as you’d know it – Chocolate – Caramel
bitter chocolate cremeux with monte peanut
and salty caramel ice cream
The wine, a Greek Pinot Noir, was light and professionally served (with an offer to sniff the cork, taste the wine) and poured at appropriate intervals.
So, whilst literally and gastronomically speaking this was indeed a ‘winner winner, chicken dinner x 2’, I want to leave the final word to the setting and ambience.
With the sun setting, the ocean crashing, this lovely, tranquil, ambient, intimate, romantic and relaxed little area of sand and decking is one of those places that takes you out of your own head and into a little piece of heaven on earth. If only for the time it takes to eat a really good meal, and drink a great bottle of wine.
memoirs of a laura 