The Mykonos Dining Guide 2026: Where to Eat on the Island

Nobu Matsuhisa's longest-running Greek outpost, twenty-three years on the same Belvedere terrace, and still the island's highest-floor meal. Book it.

Matsuhisa Mykonos sits on the pool terrace of the Belvedere Hotel above Chora, overlooking the windmills and the sunset on the right night of the week. The menu is the international Nobu canon — black cod miso, yellowtail sashimi with jalapeño, the rock shrimp tempura with creamy spicy sauce — executed by a kitchen that has been doing it on this island longer than most of the island's bartenders have been alive. The fish arrives twice a week from Tsukiji and once from Athens; the rice is the right temperature; the wasabi is the real thing.

Reserve two weeks ahead for July and August, more for a Friday or Saturday in peak. Ask for a pool-side table at the sunset seating (8:30pm) and order the omakase: it runs €240 a head before drinks and is the only way to eat through the kitchen's actual range. The Belvedere itself runs a separate, smaller Japanese room called Kiku on the property — if Matsuhisa is full, Kiku is the same brigade at half the price and two-thirds the show.

The most serious tasting menu on the island, on a hilltop terrace above Ornos, with twenty-two seats and a wine list deeper than most Mykonos hotels.

Hypsipyle opened in 2022 inside Kalesma, the Ornos hillside hotel designed by Studio Bonarchi. The dining room — twenty-two seats, a long copper bar, an open kitchen — faces west across the Aegean toward Delos and Rineia. The set menu runs five or seven courses and changes monthly. Recent dishes worth ordering by name: the smoked eel with horseradish and apple, the grilled red mullet with bottarga emulsion, and the lamb shoulder cooked in vine leaves with a yoghurt and burnt onion sauce. The kitchen has a Greek-Cretan accent without leaning on the cliché menu of fava and grilled octopus.

Wine pairings are handled by sommelier Yiannis Kaimenakis and lean into Aegean island varietals — Santorini Assyrtiko, Tinos Mavrotragano, the underrated whites of Lemnos. Pricing is honest by Mykonos standards: €145 for five courses, €210 for seven, €110 supplement for the pairing. Book three to four weeks ahead and request the corner table by the open kitchen if you want to watch the brigade work.

A restaurant literally inside a sea cave, where the sea reaches the floor and the lobster is on ice three metres from your table.

Spilia, Greek for cave, is exactly that — a natural rock cavern at Agia Anna on the south-east coast, accessed down a stone staircase, with tables set on a series of low limestone ledges. The sea enters the cave at one end; tide and weather permitting, you can hear it during dinner. The kitchen specialises in whole grilled fish — sea bass, sea bream, the larger fagri snapper when it is running — priced by the kilogram and selected from the ice display by the entrance. Sea urchin pasta with bottarga is the dish to order when the urchins are in season (April through July).

Service is unfussy and the staff have been here for years. Lunch is the right meal — bright light through the cave mouth, calmer pricing, easier reservations. Dinner books out two weeks ahead in peak. Bring a layer; the cave runs ten degrees cooler than the road above. Total for two with wine: around €200-€280 depending on the fish.

Twenty-three years on Matogianni Street and still the Chora restaurant locals choose for an actual dinner, not a scene.

Interni runs through a vaulted whitewashed courtyard off Matogianni Street, with olive trees, candle lanterns, and tables spaced generously enough that you can hear your own conversation. The menu sits at the intersection of modern Greek and Mediterranean: lamb cooked overnight at low temperature with vine leaves and yoghurt, sea bass carpaccio with citrus and olive oil from Crete, a slow-cooked moussaka that is genuinely better than the taverna version it imitates. The cocktail programme is among the most considered on the island.

Interni is reliably good rather than spectacular, which is exactly the point. It is the restaurant you book on the third night of a five-night trip when you want a comfortable, well-fed evening without theatre. Book ten days ahead in peak; ask for a courtyard table rather than the indoor bar area. Average spend: €90-€140 per person.

The beach restaurant Mykonos actually eats at when no one is watching — Ornos sand, grilled octopus, and a bill smaller than Nammos's parking valet.

Pasaji has occupied the same corner of Ornos beach for seventeen years, which on Mykonos qualifies it as ancient. The setup is straightforward — tables on a wooden deck a few metres from the water, a kitchen that runs an honest Greek seafood menu, and a wine list that leans into Greek whites. The grilled octopus is among the best on the island, served on chickpea purée with a slick of olive oil and lemon. The dakos salad with rusks, tomato, and Mykonian xinotyro cheese is exactly what an island lunch should be.

Skip the dinner sitting if you want this restaurant's actual character — lunch from 1pm to 4pm, with the beach as the soundtrack, is the meal. €60-€95 per person, half the Psarou price, and arguably better food.

Matina Niotopoulou's Chora kitchen has been the locals' answer to fine-dining-without-tourists for fifteen years. Book it.

M-eating is on Kalogera Street, set back from the main drag, with a small interior dining room and a few outdoor tables on the lane. The kitchen, run since opening by Matina Niotopoulou, produces contemporary Greek cooking that takes the regional repertoire seriously: aged graviera ravioli with lamb jus, octopus with fava and capers, sea bass with sea-fennel pesto. The portions are sensible, the wine list runs deep into Greek varietals, and the prices are about 60 percent of what the same plate would cost on a beach club menu.

This is the restaurant that quietly hosts food writers and chefs on their nights off. Book a week ahead; request an outdoor table on the lane in summer, an indoor table in shoulder season. Around €65-€110 per person.

Fifty-five years of the same family running a fish taverna behind the old harbour. The bill never makes it past €70 and the food is better than it should be at that price.

Kounelas is the taverna every Mykonos itinerary leaves off and every returning visitor adds back. A narrow lane behind the old port, no view, no scene, a small whitewashed dining room and a few outdoor tables. The Kounelas family has run it since 1971. The menu is what a Greek fish taverna should be — grilled sardines, fried calamari that is not rubbery, the day's catch by the kilogram, a horta plate of wild greens, a tomato salad with the right tomatoes.

Order off-menu when you can: the kakavia fish soup if it is on, the stuffed peppers with feta, the wild-caught sea bream baked in salt for the table. House wine is fine. Bill for two with wine: €100-€140. This is the meal that re-calibrates the rest of the week.

A meze room in Chora that runs late, fills up with locals after midnight, and pours wine from Naoussa by the carafe. Pencil it in.

Bakalo, named after the Greek word for a small village grocer, is a meze-and-wine taverna run by the Karpouzi family on Lakka Square. The room is small — about thirty covers — and the kitchen does what meze rooms are meant to do: keep the small plates coming until you tell them to stop. Highlights: the saganaki cheese with sesame and honey, the smoked pork with peppers, the slow-cooked lamb kleftiko, the home-made tzatziki.

Carafes of Naoussa Xinomavro are €18 and not embarrassed about it. Kitchen runs until 1am in peak, which makes this the right place after a late dinner that did not satisfy. Group of six or eight is the ideal table. Around €40-€55 a head.