Alati is a demo theme for AstroBaaS. The catch, menu, evenings and journal come from a live CMS. The taverna, the harbour and everyone in it are invented.All demos

Our storyΗ ιστορία μας

A net store, a grandmother, three boats and 48 summers on the same quay.

An old faded photograph of four small tables on a quay, a woman in a headscarf carrying a pot — The first summer, August 1979. Kyra Maria is the one with the pot.

It started with the crew's lunch

In 1974 Stelios Roussos built a boat and married a girl from the village, in that order, and named the boat after her. Maria started cooking for his crew in the back of the net store on the quay: bread, olives, whatever small fish nobody would buy, fried in a pan on a gas ring.

The other crews started eating there too, and then their wives, and in the summer of 1979 the harbour master let her put four tables outside. She salted the fish with salt she scraped from the hollows in the rocks below the chapel, the way her mother had, and the fishermen called the net store to Alati. The salt. It stuck.

The net store is still the kitchen. The wood oven was built into its back wall in 2003, and the nets moved next door.

Who you will meet

Three generations of one family, and a diver. Everyone else who works here all summer, you will meet at the supper the night we move inside.

Maria Roussou
Kyra Maria. Started it all, since 1979
She cooked for the fishermen in the back of her husband’s net store for five years before the harbour master let her put four tables on the quay. She is eighty-seven, still makes every spoon sweet and every jar of capers, and still tells Eleni when the fish was overcooked.
Eleni Roussou
Runs the kitchen, since 2014
Maria’s granddaughter. Trained in restaurants in Athens and Lyon, came home for one summer to help and stayed. She changed almost nothing on the menu and almost everything about how it is cooked: less oil in the pan, more on the plate, and every fish weighed in front of you.
Yannis Roussos
The terrace, the cellar, the phone, since 2012
Eleni’s brother. He answers the phone, pours the wine, and decides who gets the table at the end of the quay. If you ask him what to drink he will ask you what you are eating first.
Panagiotis Lekkas
Dives for the sea urchins, since 2019
A free diver with a licence and a lot of patience. He goes down along the rocks below the chapel from May to July, when the urchins are full, and only takes the ones above the legal size. When he has none, we have none.

The three boats

We buy from these three and nobody else, at a price agreed at the start of the season and settled every Sunday, good week or bad. That was Kyra Maria's rule and nobody has found a better one.

The blue boat Agia Irini at first light, yellow nets piled on the deck

Agia Irini Αγία Ειρήνη

Skipper: Manolis Frangakis

Named for the chapel on the point, like the harbour itself. Manolis bought her from his uncle in 1991 and has never painted her any colour but this blue. He sets two kilometres of net at dusk and is back on the quay before most of the island is awake. If you see a man asleep in the shade by the net store at eleven in the morning, that is Manolis.

Fishes with: Nets, set at dusk, lifted at four in the morning
Where: Off the north cape and the rocks below the chapel
Brings us: Red mullet, scorpion fish, rockfish for the soup
Built: 1968, 9,4 m

The red boat Kyra Maria in the harbour with three baskets of long lines on deck

Kyra Maria Κυρά Μαρία

Skipper: Thodoris Apostolou

Stelios Roussos built her the year he married, and named her for his wife, who is still sitting at table one most nights. Thodoris crewed for Stelios for twenty-two years and took the wheel when Stelios stopped. He baits every hook himself the night before and will not let anyone else coil the lines.

Fishes with: Long lines, baited by hand, two hundred hooks to a basket
Where: The deep water towards Antiparos
Brings us: Sea bream, dentex, the odd grouper, octopus in the pots
Built: 1974, 11,2 m

The small yellow boat Nikolas at night, its lamp lighting the water, the skipper at the stern

Nikolas Νικόλας

Skipper: Stamatis Kontos

The smallest boat in the harbour, painted yellow so his wife could see him from the house. Stamatis is seventy-one and fishes alone, with a lamp on a pole that pulls the squid up to the surface. On calm nights you can see his light from the terrace, moving slowly along the bay.

Fishes with: Hand lines and a lamp, at night
Where: Close in, along the bay
Brings us: Squid, picarel, small bream, the occasional cuttlefish
Built: 1983, 6,8 m

A free diver underwater above rocks covered in sea urchins, a net bag in one hand

And no boat at all

Panagiotis, diving

From May to July, when the urchins are full, Panagiotis free-dives along the rocks below the chapel with a licence and a net bag. He takes only the ones above the legal size and brings them straight to the kitchen door. They go on bread with a drop of lemon, and when he has none, we have none.

How we cook

Eleni trained in Athens and in Lyon and came home to change almost nothing on her grandmother's menu, and almost everything about how it is cooked.

Over vine cuttings. The grill burns charcoal with prunings from the vineyards above the village. They burn hot and fast and smell of August.
In the wood oven. Lit at noon, used all night: bread first, then the kid goat in paper, then the chickpeas that bake until Sunday lunch.
In the sun. On a north wind, octopus hangs on the line outside the kitchen door for two days before it meets the coals.
With salt from the rocks. Still, for the anchovies and the capers. A little, as a nod to the name.

Less oil in the pan, more on the plate. Every fish on the bone, and weighed in front of you if you ask.

The kitchen: a wood oven with a fire, pots steaming on the stove, a cook in an apron, a window on the harbour

On this quay

1968
Agia Irini is built at the boatyard in Parikia and named for the chapel on the point.
1974
Stelios Roussos builds a boat the year he marries and calls it Kyra Maria. Maria starts cooking for his crew in the back of the net store.
1979
The harbour master lets her put four tables on the quay. The crews already call the place to Alati, for the salt she scrapes from the rocks to cure fish.
1983
Stamatis Kontos launches Nikolas, the smallest boat in the harbour, and starts bringing squid.
1991
Manolis Frangakis buys Agia Irini from his uncle. He still fishes her.
2003
The wood oven is built into the old net store wall. Kid goat in paper goes on the menu and never comes off.
2011
Stelios stops fishing. Thodoris, his deckhand for twenty-two years, takes the wheel of Kyra Maria.
2014
Eleni comes home from Lyon for one summer to help her grandmother, and stays to run the kitchen.
2019
Panagiotis starts diving for urchins below the chapel. When he has none, we have none.
2026
Our 48th season. Kyra Maria is eighty-seven. She still does the spoon sweets.

What we have never done Δεν κάνουμε

No frozen fish.
If the boats stayed in, the board is short. After two days of it, we close and say so here by two in the afternoon.
No bookings after half past nine.
The last four tables are for whoever walks up. Mostly that is the harbour.
No music from speakers.
Babis plays on a full moon. The rest of the time you get the water and the rigging.
No fish under the legal size.
Not even when a boat offers them cheap. Especially then.
No filleting in the kitchen.
Fish cooks better on the bone. Ask, and we will take it off the bone at your table.

See the harbour, the boats and the kitchen in our pictures, or come and see them for real.

Book a table