ELEA Traditional Tavern — Restaurant in Municipality of Agios Vasileios

Tourist trap don't even bother coming in. Not sure why the reviews are so high.

The service is slow and inattentive. The quality of food is "meh" overall :/

Don't bother coming in if you are not a table of 8 people at least (the bigger the table the more attention you get, unfortunately, we were only 2 people so had to wait for everything). You will have very little attention and will wait for your food (even if it's just a salad) forever.

Beer took 10mins and 2 reminders to finally arrive to the table. Waiter and the owner were smoking a cigarrete inside while serving food and pouring drinks.

Eggplant salad and zucchini flowers were good, snail were good too although we were offered only dessert fork as service so took forever to eat them [see pics]

But then we were unlucky to order fried calamari - the worst in the history (dry, overcooked and rubbery), worst calamari in Crete so far [see pics - calamari are so dark as they are burnt]. Shrimps on grill were also an epic fail : not clean (with sand black strip remaining) most probably frozen as when I started to clean one it was falling apart in my hand as i was cleaning it, mushy and NOT FRESH, i didn't order mashed shrimps... We immediately asked to check with the kitchen and person came saying "they are okey"... My husband ate one I ate none being concerned for our health and quality of food, the whole dish went back to the kitchen but.... (drumroll) we were fully charged for it - hope the stuff had a meal paid by us! We are foodies, we like good quality food AND can assure anyone this food was dangerously bad!

P.S. Look at carafe being broken and still put on the table for customers. If the owner is stingy to throw away the broken carafe - don't...

Single visit tourist trap with zero understanding or concern of how to ensure customer satisfaction. Visited for a special celebration and chose this place due to rating and reviews. Although service was very slow and a drinks order was forgotten, due to only really having one waiter, we actually got off to a decent start with some nice appetisers of eggplant salad and zucchini flowers followed by snails. We then got the mains of grilled prawns and fried squid, both which were very overcooked and not particularly appetising. We tried to eat most of the squid, despite the batter tasting a bit burnt (assuming due to oil being too hot) but just couldn't get beyond our first prawn each which still had its intestines, was very dry, tasted a bit burnt and was falling apart (either not fresh as stated or very poorly cooked). We sent them back and the waiter came back and said he tasted them and they were OK, which we couldn't agree to but thought they would fire up a new batch or remove from the bill. Neither happened and upon receiving the bill we were still charged for the prawns and upon questioning this, we were told that the prawns were OK and they would still be charging us. My wife and I were completely put back by this and very reluctantly paid the bill and left with a very bad taste in our mouths of the whole experience and feeling completely ripped off. Surely there has to be better options than this in the area as all other choices we have made over the last two weeks in Crete have been remarkably better experiences and overall better...

Used to be a 5 star experience every visit but has now gone off, one waiter used to run the whole floor, but has now left and been replaced by two others who should really stick to their vocation of raking the beach, if they çould manage that. I had special sausage, which was overcooked the slaw that was served with it was dried up dead veg. with no taste, the dish altogether too dry. My partner had special Chicken with mushrooms and Peppers, which she enjoyed even though the chicken was a tadge overcooked and dry. BUT the house white wine was the worst thing we've ever tasted, something like month old goat's urine, distilled to get it just the right colour of yellow and then having a splash of disinfectant added to give it an edge. When I complained to the waiter he blanked me and walked away. I eventually managed to get his attention and asked for the bill, after 25 minutes I had to ask again, he was too busy seeing to new arrivals and totally ignoring customers already seated, eventually got the bill after half am hour. SHALL NOT...