Cave of Nikolas

The Restaurant

Cave of Nikolas opened in 1965 in a natural volcanic-rock cave on the main road through Akrotiri, the southern Santorini village that sits a short walk from the famous Red Beach. The restaurant is named after the founder, Nikolas, and is still operated by his grandchildren in 2026 — a continuity that the island's commercial caldera-view circuit cannot match. The dining room is the cave itself, with whitewashed walls, dark-wood tables, fishing nets hanging from the volcanic ceiling, and the original kitchen still working a wood oven that pre-dates Santorini's tourism boom.

The menu has remained essentially unchanged for six decades, which is the entire point. The fava is the island's standard reference: split peas from neighbouring fields, slow-cooked, finished with raw onion, capers, and the family's own olive oil. The tomatokeftedes are fried to order. The grilled octopus is sun-dried on a line outside the cave before grilling — the proper Santorinian preparation. The rabbit stifado, the goat with lemon, the salt-cured anchovies, the fresh fish from Akrotiri's small harbour — all are cooked by a kitchen that has not changed its sourcing in three generations.

The wine list is short and entirely Santorinian: about thirty references from the island's working wineries, none pretentiously priced. The house Assyrtiko is on tap; the better bottles run from a Santo Wines Nykteri to an Argyros Estate Atlantis. The bill at the end is the island's most generous — typically 35 to 45 euros per person for a full lunch with wine, half of what an equivalent caldera-view table will charge for inferior cooking. Family taverna economics, kept honest by a family that has had no reason to change them.