Santorini Restaurants: Where to Eat in Santorini

The island's own dishes

Santorini's volcanic soil grows a short list of ingredients you will not taste the same way anywhere else. Fava is not the yellow split-pea dip of other Greek islands here, it is made from a local yellow pea grown on the island for centuries and served thick with raw onion and olive oil. Tomato fritters, called tomatokeftedes, use small intensely flavoured tomatoes that ripen with almost no irrigation, and they are the single most ordered plate on the island.

White aubergine is the other volcanic specialty, sweeter than the purple kind, fried or grilled with little else on the plate. Caper leaves and caper berries appear in salads everywhere, because the caper bush grows wild out of the cliff walls. For dessert, ask for a glass of Vinsanto, the sun-dried sweet wine that gives the island its name in wine lists across the world.

• Fava: yellow pea purée with olive oil and onion, the island's signature starter
• Tomatokeftedes: tomato fritters made from the small local tomatoes
• White aubergine: sweet, fried or in salad, grown only here
• Caper salad: leaves and berries from the wild caper bushes
• Vinsanto: the sun-dried sweet wine to finish

Fish, meat and the rest of the Greek canon

Fish tavernas at Ammoudi Bay and on the Kamari and Perissa promenades display the catch on ice, priced per kilo. Check the price before you order, because caldera-side fish can cost several times the village rate. Grilled octopus, fried anchovies and sea bream are the safe orders.

Away from the water, the everyday Greek dishes carry the meal: moussaka, souvlaki, grilled halloumi, and a proper Greek salad with barrel-aged feta. For a wider grounding in the island's food, read our guide to Santorini food, and if you want to understand how the dishes are built, the cooking class with a Greek chef walks you through tomato fritters and tzatziki before lunch with wine.

Wine at the table

Assyrtiko is the white grape that defines PDO Santorini, high in acid and minerality because the vines grow in low baskets, the kouloura, trained against the wind. It pairs with everything above, especially the fava and the fish. Athiri and Aidani round out the whites, and Vinsanto is the sweet close.

Order local by the bottle at tavernas, it is usually cheaper than imported names. To taste widely before you commit, the Santorini wineries page lists the estates, and a guided tasting removes the guesswork: the wine adventure with 12 tastings and tapas covers three wineries in four hours with hotel pick-up.

The rim terraces

Oia grew as the island's merchant village, its sea captains building the mansions whose terraces now hold restaurants. Dining here is a view purchase as much as a meal, and the sunsets draw crowds to the Oia castle ruins that pack the walkways every evening. The fine dining rooms along the caldera edge take bookings weeks ahead in summer, and the tables angled west command the premium.

Practically, come early or late. A table at 18:30 or after 21:00 is easier to find and quieter, and you can watch the sunset from the castle walls first, free. Oia's population is only about a thousand people, so most restaurant staff commute in and the kitchens run on the summer crowd. Budget accordingly, this is the most expensive dining on the island after Imerovigli.

Down at Ammoudi

Ammoudi Bay sits below the Oia cliff, reached by a long flight of steps or by the small road that loops down from the village. The step count is not officially published, count the walk down and back as part of the evening. The harbour's handful of tavernas are the island's classic fish restaurants, with red rock above, deep blue water at your feet and the day's catch on display.

This is where you go for grilled fish rather than for the view from above, though the view is its own argument. Tables at the water's edge go first, so reserve. A sunset cruise from Oia and Ammoudi also leaves from here if you want the harbour and the sunset in one outing, and our Ammoudi Bay page covers the swimming too.

Fira: every price point in one town

Fira is the capital and the transport hub, which means it feeds everyone: cruise passengers off the cable car, ferry arrivals from Athinios port, and hotel guests along the rim. The result is a complete spread. Caldera terraces near the cable-car head charge the premium, gyros shops and bakery counters a street inland feed you for pocket change, and family tavernas in the back lanes serve the classics without the view markup.

The efficient way to know the town is on foot. The Fira half-day food tour walks the caldera path into Firostefani with tastings at local eateries for up to eight people, which is a good first-evening plan, it orients you and feeds you. After dinner, the town is also the centre of the island's nightlife.

Firostefani and Imerovigli: the quiet stretch

North of Fira the rim narrows into Firostefani and then Imerovigli, the calmest of the caldera villages. Firostefani's restaurant strip sits on the rim path with the same western light as Fira but fewer crowds, and the famous three bells of Fira church is a short walk away. Imerovigli, which spreads below the medieval Skaros Rock, caters to the hotel guests of the finest resorts, so the kitchens here are among the most ambitious on the island.

Eat here on the night you want quiet rather than spectacle. The rim path connects all three villages, an easy stroll between courses, and it is the same path the Fira to Oia hike follows. Our estimate for a dinner-crawl from Fira through Firostefani to Imerovigli is under an hour of walking in total, mostly flat.

Pyrgos, the hilltop food village

Pyrgos was the island's capital until the early 1800s and it still behaves like one, a hill of Venetian castle lanes crowned by ruins with a full-island view. Restaurants cluster around the central square and along the cobbled ways below the kastelli, serving grilled meat, local starters and, in season, the village's famous sit-down Easter spread. It has become the food-lovers' base precisely because it is not on the rim.

The practical bonus is wine. The Santo Wines cooperative's caldera-view winery sits just below the village, open all year with online booking, and tasting prices are listed on the winery's booking page. The small-group sunset wine tour that ends at Santo closes its evening on that terrace, which pairs neatly with a late dinner up in the village. The bus from Fira costs $2.46 (€2.20).

Megalochori and the wine country

Megalochori is the wine village, surrounded by vineyards and home to several of the island's established wineries. Its lanes run under bell arches and bougainvillea to two quiet squares, and the tavernas here fill with winemakers as readily as tourists, which tells you everything about the quality to price ratio. Order the fava and whatever the grill announces, and let the house white be your guide.

Come for lunch rather than dinner and you can walk it off between estates, several of which welcome visitors for tastings, listed on our Santorini wineries page. The Fira-Megalochori bus costs $2.46 (€2.20) and the village is one of the stops on most island bus tours, including the full-day route that also covers Akrotiri.

Emporio and the south

Emporio is the largest traditional village on the island, a dense maze of lanes built for defence below a fortified citadel on a hill of black rock. It is a working village first, and its kafeneia and tavernas serve the people who live here, which keeps prices at village level and the cooking unfussy. Combine it with the fortress climb and the nearby Red Beach viewpoint at Akrotiri, where the land path is closed by the municipality for rockfall and the beach is best seen from above or from a boat.

The bus from Fira runs here for $2.46 (€2.20). If you are touring the south by scooter or car, our ATV rental page covers the licensing rules you need to know first.

Kamari and the fish taverna promenade

Kamari sits under Mesa Vouno, the mountain that carries the ruins of Ancient Thera on top, and its long paved promenade is lined with restaurants step from the black sand. Fish tavernas lead with the day's catch, displayed on ice, and the general标准 is honest Greek cooking with a holiday trim. It is the easiest place on the island to have a good dinner with children in tow, tables on the sand-adjacent pavement, no cliffs and no steps.

The village also hosts one of the island's best-value food experiences: the three-hour cooking class in Kamari with lunch and wine, small group, at the lowest price of any class on this page. The bus from Fira costs $2.46 (€2.20), and the airport is a few kilometres north if you have a late flight out.

Perissa, Perivolos and Vlychada

Perissa's black-sand beach runs south into Perivolos in an almost unbroken line of tavernas, beach bars and low-key hotel dining. This is the swim-then-eat side of the island: spend the afternoon on a lounger, walk off the sand at sunset and take the nearest table with grilled octopus and a carafe of Assyrtiko. Prices sit below the rim and the atmosphere is firmly informal.

At the southern end, Vlychada is the stranger, quieter option, its lunar cliffs carved by the wind, with a small marina and a couple of solid seafood places. Many catamaran cruises depart from Vlychada marina, so a late lunch here pairs naturally with an afternoon sail, and the Fira-Vlychada bus costs $3.13 (€2.80).

The three cheapest good strategies

First, eat one street back from the rim. In Fira especially, the difference between a caldera terrace and a backstreet taverna three minutes away can be dramatic for nearly identical food. Second, eat your main meal at lunch, when set plates and taverna specials appear and the same kitchens charge less. Third, base yourself near a village square rather than a resort strip. Pyrgos, Megalochori and Emporio all feed visitors at local prices.

For the wider numbers, our page on is Santorini expensive breaks down what a day actually costs, and the free things to do in Santorini list keeps the rest of the day cheap so dinner can be the splurge. Transport is not the problem either: buses cover most of the island for $2.46 to $3.13 (€2.20 to €2.80) a ride.

When the splurge is worth it

Two splurges earn their price. The first is a single caldera-sunset dinner at the rim, booked ahead, treated as the holiday's set-piece evening, ideally in Imerovigli if you want quiet or Oia if you want theatre. The second is a food experience that compresses a lot of taste into a few hours, which is where the guided tours beat a la carte.

Our picks: the wine adventure with 12 tastings, tapas and sunset at $194.49 for the widest sweep, or the cave-house cooking class by Petra Kouzina at $251.69 if you would rather spend four hours learning than being served. Both fill an evening completely, which is the real value: a booked experience is a planned day.