Crete, day four: Of courgette croquettes and fish that sing
By the time you hit day four in Crete, your soul has adjusted. You’ve gone native in all the best ways. Your internal clock now ticks to the hum of cicadas, your blood has thinned into olive oil, and the word “schedule” is a foggy memory from a past life. This is exactly where I was — poolside, sunk into a sun-warmed lounger with Victoria Hislop’s The Island in one hand and a chilled glass of white in the other. A bit on the nose, sure — reading a novel set on Spinalonga Island in Crete while in Crete preparing for a trip to Spinalonga — but come on, don’t we all deserve to indulge in the cliché every now and then?
I was saving my only proper excursion for Friday — the ghost isle of Spinalonga, a leper colony turned UNESCO heartbreak — but today was a simpler affair. A stroll through the village, the kind where you drift more than walk. No plans, no destination. Just letting the air pull you around like smoke in a breeze.
And then, like all good travel stories, it happened: a tavern. Taberna Aposperida. The kind of place tucked just out of the way, no neon signs, no laminated menus screaming “we speak English!” Just a few tables shaded by vines, the low murmur of locals, and a smell that stopped me in my tracks — garlic, grilled bread, maybe a hint of dill on the wind.
The owner, a wiry guy with sunburnt forearms and the kind of charisma that makes diplomats nervous, greeted us like long-lost cousins. Fluent in French, cracked jokes in three languages, and made us laugh so hard I almost choked on my Mythos. We ordered simply, but there’s magic in simplicity when done with love and a little swagger.
We ordered simply, but there’s magic in simplicity when done with love and a little swagger. Tuna salad, light and vibrant, with flaked fish that tasted like it had just jumped from the sea onto the plate — tossed with crisp greens, tomatoes bursting with sun, slivers of red onion, and a lemony olive oil dressing that danced on the tongue. Pita and tzatziki, smooth, garlicky, the kind of thing you spread thick and lick from your fingers. And then… the courgette croquettes. Jesus. Stuffed with dill, crisped to oblivion, like someone deep-fried spring itself. Paired with that tzatziki, they were enough to make you reconsider everything you thought you knew about zucchini.
Someone recently asked me how I always manage to find these places — the real places. The answer? Simple: I trust my eyes. If I see laminated Union Jacks or American flags slapped on a sign, I keep walking. I didn’t travel 2,200 miles to eat a reheated English breakfast or a burger named after Elvis. I want to eat where Yiayia eats. I want food that tastes like someone’s grandmother cried into it — in a good way.
Dinner took us to Koutouloufari, a neighboring village, to a spot with a name straight out of a Steinbeck novel: Nikos The Fisherman. Fresh paint on old stones, a quiet patio, the smell of the sea in the air. It’s a family-run place with a one-item philosophy: if it didn’t swim recently, it’s not on your plate.
We started with their mezze dip board. Not a plate. A board. A rustic olive plank that looked like it had been stolen from an ancient shipwreck. Eight dips, each one a love letter to something elemental. Taramosalata, tzatziki, fava with black-eyed peas, a fiery pepper-feta mash-up, two versions of hummus, and this smoked eggplant salad that was half campfire, half silk sheet. The kind of thing that makes you stare at the bowl wondering how it exists. There was oregano and honey and yoghurt and some secret ingredient that I’m convinced was joy.
Mains? A superfood prawn salad the size of a satellite dish. Think prawns the length of your hand lounging on a garden of chopped vegetables, fruits, pulses, and nuts. Strawberries and chickpeas should not work together, but here, they did. No dressing needed. Just freshness, perfectly balanced like some kind of edible haiku.
And then the grilled sea bass. Crisp skin, tender flesh, a lemon sauce that was more poetry than condiment. Served with smashed potatoes that had the audacity to be both crunchy and fluffy at once. We didn’t just clean our plates — we considered licking them. Between bites, we snuck a few morsels to a lovely stray kitten who had curled up patiently at our feet, blinking up at us with a quiet dignity, clearly knowing this wasn’t her first fish dinner from a soft-hearted tourist.
Oh, and then there was what they jokingly called “Greek sushi” — a dish so simple and so perfect it made you laugh. Fresh anchovies, barely marinated, laid delicately over a bed of peppery rocket and sweet heirloom tomatoes. Salty, clean, and unapologetically Mediterranean. No soy sauce, no rice, no wasabi — just the kind of raw honesty that made you want to raise a glass to the sea itself.
Dessert? No room. That was a problem for our post-dinner walk — the promise of gelato somewhere along the winding path back to the hotel. That’s how life works here. One perfect bite after another, punctuated by long strolls and belly laughs.
Crete, my friends, is not a destination. It’s a seduction. And on day four, I was all in.
