How to Book the Well of the Turk in Chania
Published
There is a real well inside the Well of the Turk — in the middle room of the old Ottoman stone house at Kallinikou Sarpaki 1, deep in Chania’s Splantzia quarter. Elina Manoursaridou’s Cretan-Levantine kitchen serves dinner only, 18:00–23:30, and the phone (+30 28210 54547) is the booking system.
The House With the Well
Splantzia was Chania’s Turkish quarter, and the restaurant’s stone rooms — Venetian-era bones, Ottoman-era life — keep the evidence: the namesake well in the middle room, a back room said to have served as a prison, and the quiet square opposite the sunken church of Agia Irene. The menu is the founding idea intact: Jenny Payavla built it around her summers in Tangier, and owner-chef Elina Manoursaridou, who bought the restaurant from her, has kept the Levantine-Moroccan thread running through Cretan produce. Our Well of the Turk review calls it the most transporting room in Chania — and it is a room: tables sit at street level on the lane and in the stone interiors, not on a rooftop.
Booking the Stone Rooms
Call +30 28210 54547 or write to [email protected]; the site (welloftheturk.gr) carries a contact form. Dinner only, 18:00–23:30. In July and August call a few days ahead for the 20:00–21:30 window and say where you want to sit: the well room for the story, the lane tables for the Splantzia evening. Early (18:30) and late (22:00) walk-ins usually find a table even in season — the quarter hides it well enough that the queue never matches the quality.
Tangier via Crete
Order across the border the menu draws: shish kebab with avocado-orange salad — the house signature and the dish that explains the whole project; slow-cooked local lamb with preserved lemons and couscous; the Middle Eastern vegetarian moussaka that converts committed carnivores; stuffed courgette flowers in season; aubergine meatballs from the meze list. Finish with Moroccan mint tea poured high. Prices sit in the honest middle of Chania’s old town — this is a neighbourhood institution, not a resort bill, and the wine list works the Cretan hillsides.
The Splantzia Evening
Book for 20:30, arrive early, and take the quarter first: Agia Irene opposite, the plane-tree square at 1821 Street, the lanes the beach crowds never reach. Dinner lands as the evening service of a neighbourhood that still belongs to Chania. The rest of the town’s tables are in our Chania dining guide; the first-date list keeps a candle lit for the well room, and Galion in Kotor is this page’s Adriatic sibling — old stones, honest fish, a story in the walls.
View the Well of the Turk on Restaurants for Kings →
Related Reading
- Our full profile: Well of the Turk review.
- The town: Chania dining guide.
- Old stones elsewhere: Galion, Kotor and Ninia’s Garden, Tbilisi.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you book the Well of the Turk?
By phone (+30 28210 54547), by email ([email protected]), or via the form on welloftheturk.gr. Dinner only, 18:00–23:30. A few days’ notice covers the prime 20:00–21:30 window in July and August; early and late tables often walk in.
Is there really a well inside?
Yes — the historic well sits in the middle of the three stone rooms and gives the restaurant its name. The building is an Ottoman-era stone house in Splantzia, Chania’s old Turkish quarter; the back room is said to have once been a prison. Seating is at street and room level — there is no rooftop.
What kind of food does the Well of the Turk serve?
Cretan-Levantine: founder Jenny Payavla built the menu around her Tangier summers, and owner-chef Elina Manoursaridou has kept the line — shish kebab with avocado-orange salad, lamb with preserved lemons and couscous, a Middle Eastern vegetarian moussaka, aubergine meatballs, Moroccan mint tea.
What does dinner cost?
Mid-range for Chania’s old town — a full meze-and-mains dinner with Cretan wine lands well under resort prices. Exact menu prices are not published online; the value is the quarter’s worst-kept secret.
Where exactly is it?
Kallinikou Sarpaki 1, Splantzia — off the Rouga square, opposite the sunken church of Agia Irene, a ten-minute walk east of the Venetian harbour and a world away from its crowds.