The Olondi — Restaurant in Municipality of Agios Nikolaos

Dear The Olondi Team,

We visited your restaurant with high hopes during our honeymoon, but unfortunately, our experience was deeply disappointing.

The moussaka we were served was completely burnt and looked nothing like the photos. The fried calamari was accompanied by wilted lettuce and soft, bruised tomatoes — they clearly felt like leftovers from the day before. The Greek salad was also far from fresh: the onions had turned grey, and the peppers were soft and clearly past their prime.

The seafood spaghetti was the most concerning: it was full of sand. We had been swimming all day and came with great appetite — but the delay between our appetizer and the main course was around 40 minutes, which only added to our disappointment. While drinks arrived quickly, the overall experience felt like a classic tourist trap.

We quietly mentioned our concerns to an older gentleman who seemed to work there. He acknowledged that “we should fix this,” but nothing was done proactively.

When we received the bill, we started sharing our feedback. A lady — possibly the manager — took notice and kindly removed the charges for the main dishes. I even told her she could include them, but she insisted not to. Still, I noticed some dishes were reheated in a microwave, which left us even more disheartened.

This is not about money. It’s about how a couple on their honeymoon had their evening ruined. People come to this beautiful island having waited and saved for this moment all year. There is a responsibility in that.

I truly hope your team understands how much better things could be with just a little more attention to freshness and care. We sincerely wish you take this feedback to heart.

Best...

Ordering and table service took ages (we waited for almost half an hour for our starter plates to be cleared away).

Wine was simply poured and not offered to taste. Bucket for the wine bottle, without ice (!) was brought a little after.

The fried courgettes, aka the "crispy ones", were not crispy at all and only semi warm. Dolmadakia were good but nothing spectacular. Greek salad was bland and required lots of salt and pepper to taste like anything at all.

Soft drink was served warm and without ice (although it was 33° C). Still water also had no ice.

The Greek Faso that played all night, was so annoying, especially after multiple hours of waiting. We've been there for almost 2,5 hours!

Beef Sirloin Souvlaki was tough and was only served with microwaved vegetables. Prawn Risotto was fine. Mixed fish for 1 was interesting to say at least, the fried squid tasted like frozen ones, sardines were bland, the sword fish dry and the brass too. The latter I had to fillet myself.

All in all it wasn't a pleasant experience at all. We hoped it would be great as a foreign gourmet tablet recommended it and the reviews here were quite good but we were more than disappointed by our visit!

Asking for the bill and ultimately paying was also quite the hassle. We ordered the bill, waited another while and then we first got some fruits on the house. Those were okay but not the freshest. A small bottle of Raki was also given to us. Then, we had to ask for the bill again. The tip was fixed to no tip, 5%, 10% or 15%.

PSA: the restrooms are disgusting! They were not...

My girlfriend and I were in Crete for 10 days and this was by far the worse restaurant where we ate and, ironically, the one where we spent the most.

We took two glasses of a Cretan white wine, from the bottle, that was 7 euro a glass but tasted like cheap house wine. The seafood was not good, probably frozen, and not cleaned correctly: there was some sand or something similar inside the squid and on the octopus. The moussaka was comparable to a Lidl pre-made micro-waweable cottage pie. The aubergine dip tasted like it was a few days old.

We couldn't finish the food that we ordered, since we were disgusted. We felt bad on our stomach later at night.

The overall price was very high, compared to all the other restaurants that we went to and where we ate much better.

We decided to trust the reviews but we don't understand where all these good reviews are coming from. Tourist...