The Restaurant
Aroma Avlis sits on the village square in Megalochori, the inland Santorini settlement five kilometres south of Fira that has retained its 18th-century Cycladic character better than any other village on the island. The restaurant occupies a converted villa with a courtyard table-cluster under bougainvillea and the original whitewashed walls of the family house. Seating is about fifty inside and out; the dinner service is unhurried in a way that the caldera-view restaurants cannot be.
The kitchen runs a tight modern-Greek menu that rotates with the Santorini growing season. The fava me koukia (split-pea puree with broad beans) is the version every visiting wine merchant orders to remember the island by; the slow-cooked goat with lemon and oregano is on the menu year-round; the tomatokeftedes — Santorini's cherry-tomato fritters — are made daily from fruit grown on the village's own pumice-rich soils. Signature dishes change three times a year and have included a smoked aubergine with caper-leaf, a sea bass with Santorini caper-leaf greens, and a slow-roasted pork shoulder with fava.
The wine list is the room's serious distinction. Aroma Avlis pours about 180 references with extraordinary depth in Santorini Assyrtiko (Hatzidakis, Sigalas, Gaia, Argyros, Santo Wines, Vassaltis, Estate Argyros), including back vintages of Nykteri (oak-aged Assyrtiko) and the rare Vinsanto dessert wines that the village is famous for producing. The sommelier, who has been at the restaurant since 2014, will guide a Santorini-only flight that runs from dry Assyrtiko through Nykteri to Vinsanto across a three-course meal. This is the address that the island's wine professionals send each other to when they finish a long day of cellar visits.
Why This Is Santorini’s First Date Pick
A first-date dinner at Aroma Avlis is the inverse of the caldera-view obvious move. The setting is rural-Cycladic rather than infinity-pool dramatic; the conversation never has to compete with a sunset photograph; the wine list creates its own narrative through three or four glasses. The Megalochori location signals you have stayed on the island longer than the standard four-night cruise visitor and have done some homework. The walk afterwards through the village's whitewashed lanes is the dinner's natural conclusion.
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