Cyprus Restaurants

[phrederic]

Can anyone make some suggestions for restaurants in Cyprus? If there was a thread on this I can't find it.... I'm going soon for a couple of weeks. If I find of possibilities I'll type up a report like the excellent recent Istanbul restaurants thread.

There's a four season's on the island, so I'll probably stay for a night or two and pick the concierge's brain on suggestions but egulletiers are a great resource.

I know it isn't a place one thinks of in relation to Haut Gastronomie, but, hey, on Malta a few years ago I found some fabulous places.

Thanks in advance.

[athinaeos]

Can anyone make some suggestions for restaurants in Cyprus?

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I can recommend two places in Limassol.

"Forsos" is for meat, in the village of "Moutagiaka", very near Limassol. You go and order "meze", and they bring you a little bit of everything. Do not bother with a main dish, I hope you will be very happy with the "meze" variety. Try to taste everything.

"Ladas" is for fish, in the old port of Limassol. Consider appetizers like octopus, or shrimp, but have a fresh fish for the main dish.

Happy eating.

[marlena spieler]

my foolproof way of finding good places to eat in cyprus is to ask the taxi drivers, and NOT the hotel staff. hotel staff, esp at the four seasons, is most likely to stear you in the direction of a touristy place. maybe a fun place for dancing and singing, but probably not very good food unless you like a deep fried meze dinner......

there is a wonderful place, i call stella and louis, in a village near paphos. i have to look up their address, but its worth it. they just make a meze meal, you give them an idea of what you're interested in, and they keep bringin tiny plates of that and whatever else they think you'll like. a gem.

will write name and address later, hopefully i'll find it.

x marlena

[marlena spieler]

aha, i've found it!

the name of the restaurant is to porizin, in the village of mesoyi, a few miles out of paphos on the road to polis i believe.

the owners are stella and louis, stella does all the cooking and she also reads the tea/coffee leaves to tell your future. really yummy food, its all done in meze fashion: a start of little dips, a parade of tiny portions of yummy things, then they end with a dab of something sweet and a little fresh fruit. sometimes there is a shot of something strong at the end.

i hope they are still around, its been a few years since i was there. we ate there nearly every night for 2 weeks and never got tired of it, the food always varied and always satisfied. we'd be swimming in the afternoons, or driving around on an expedition of some sort, meanwhile having this conversation: i wonder what stella is cooking tonight.......

enjoy!

marlena

[phrederic]

Thanks!

I'll give you a report on my return.

While I'm sure you are right about the tourist-leaning restaurant suggestions of hotel staff, I'll probably have to go to 'em anyway. And specifiy to them I'm a complete killjoy who doesn't want dancing and singing anywhere near my amuse-bouche.

I'm looking forward to trying stella and louis. I do like great, home-cooking style places. (re the taxi drivers my experience has been, in most parts of the world, that winemakers and even wine merchants often make the best source for local restaurants. They usually love to eat well).

But what we are really trying to find is a few serious, ambitious, restaurants shooting for the highest form of gastronomy they can achieve. Great wine list and knowledgeable sommelier with the best local as well as foreign wines. The kind of place that would have not one, but at least 3 or 4 of the best local olive oils to show off the diversity of the island's products. In France, Italy, Spain and Germany we have many of varying quality and cost. They may not exist on Cyprus. Some countries don't have those kind of restaurants. But most do, even if they have to rely on mostly tourists along with the native bigwigs to make ends meet. We found 3 in Malta. Only 2 in Crete. Quite a few in Turkey with--seemingly--more every year though mostly on the coasts and in Istanbul and Ankara where there's enough money to make it possible for an ambitious place to succeed).

But all suggestions ae greatly appreciated. So Thanks again.

[marlena spieler]

worst food of my life in Malta, very excellent food in Crete, though none of the 'fine dining' that you are describing.

just back from a conference in athens in which i had quite a few samplings of the type you describe: some delightful, some just pretentious. i'm not sure that cyprus is the place for you to go looking for fine dining. when i was there last (friends lived there, so i got the skinny on what was going on) there wasn't even the pride of what is the best olive oil on the island, they just wanted to please their guests/british/foreigners who were bringing in the bucks so to speak.

but there was wonderful home fare. traditional fare.

my recent visit to athens, following the whole modern european (in this case modern greek) brought home to me the fact that when modern food goes past the pretentious state, past the part when they add all the fusion foods and new ideas which might be good somewhere else but are merely derivative, anyhow, when they get past them and really embrace their own quality, revel in their own traditions but seen with a fresh eye, and perhaps the finesse of doing occasional stages in Paris or Spain, anyhow, that is when the real fine dining and modern cuisine stuff kicks in. until then it is merely copy-cat with a few bows to local ingredients.

a recent trip to umbria underlined this too. wow. there we were in a culinaryily rich area of the world, and this highly acclaimed restaurant was serving what was basically 1970s nouvelle cuisine, with some very silly flavours, little in the way of satisfaction on the plate, and much pomp.

good luck! the things i found that were the best in cyprus were: bread baked in a woodburning oven; ditto for lamb. homemade yogurt. anything stella makes. some very interesting tubers, and leaves. great artichokes.

we had a yummy time! heres to your having a yummy time too!

Marlena

[buttercup]

I am heading to Cyprus for two weeks at the end of July. Despite my research I have been unable to find really useful (ie. qualitative) information as to where is the best place to go. I would like to head to a beach area, but would also like to have good food and avoid a McBeach vacation. I will have to pop back into the capital on a couple of nights, but I figure if I am there I should make the most of my stay! I plan to rent a car so transportation is not an issue.

I have taken note of the Porizin restaurant and will certainly try to make my way there.

Any ideas are welcome and, if they stray too far from food topics, please feel free to PM me. I do not want any great ideas to be edited out.

Thanks so much!!

[John Talbott]

Well it's a bit late to help the folks above who are asking for suggestions but May's Saveur suggests: Kamares Taverna, Neon Phaliron + Seven St Georges Tavern.

[John Talbott]

And, in today's NYT there's an article that suggests: Bay Kahkaha for Turkish food, Atolye Cadi Kazani Cafe for Turkish coffee and Ta Kala Kathoumena for a "frothy frappe and political commentary."

[Harters]

An old thread, but we're heading off to Paphos for a couple of weeks in April. Yes, I know it's touristy (that's why we're going). But we'd like to get in some good meals in the immediate area if possible. We know of 7 St Georges as mentioned above by John, as an exponent of organic food which they serve up as meze. But anywhere else in that part of the island?

TIA