Mylos By The Sea — Restaurant in Municipality of Leros

Just came in July for my birthday. It was supposed to be the highlight but unfortunately it was the lowlight of the Leros weekend trip. First of all it’s a beautiful setting and we were greeted by an eloquent hostess. So far so good.

Unfortunately they put our group of 4 in a squeezed middle table between 4 tables. On my right was a guy smoking a cigar with his cigar on a side tray literally 8 inches from my chair. It was really cramped. They have a separate lunch and dinner service and our 3pm reservation put us at the tail end of the lunch service so that could have played into our bad luck.

Disturbed by the smoke, the hostess said she could accommodate us and said we could have a seaside table nearby. But as soon as the table was cleared a few min later, a waiter moved another couple to that table. Denied.

We decided to make the best of it and reviewed the menu. Great wine list and some stunning dishes. Note: some of the seafood and meats displayed inside the restaurant were quite impressive.

Eventually we got moved to a roomier table by the other waiter and main waiter returned to take our order. When we put in our order for several ceviche and carpaccio dishes and a bottle of wine, he told us the kitchen was closing and that we needed to order everything now. Disappointingly we opened back up the menus and everyone felt rushed. We could tell he was getting impatient so we put an order in for the clam pasta. Another friend asked about the portion size and he said “we normally say it feeds 2 so I’ll put you down for 2 portions” and left.

My wife noted it was my birthday to the staff a few times. During the meal they sang a big happy birthday to another table and everyone was enjoying the energy.

The food started coming including the carpaccio and ceviche and it was amazing. The highlight of the meal. The plating was eloquent and we savored the dishes. Yummy!

Shortly after, the double portion of clam pasta came. It was good but pretty much filled us up. Considering we never really wanted a huge double portion of pasta as our main course, we regretted not telling the waiter one portion was enough. However we can’t say we left hungry! Then as we were eating our main dishes, our waiter sprinted by us, said in English “bye guys” and left. No handoff to another waiter…I guess his shift was done.

As the new waiter (the nice one from before) was pouring the last of our 2nd bottle, we decided to order dessert. As our main waiter was gone, it was more a ‘call us if you need us’ service at this point. No 3rd bottle was ordered but we did remember they had baklava ice cream on the menu so we called the waiter over and ordered that. It was ok. Nice presentation.

As we were eating dessert, the restaurant was emptying out considerably as the lunch service was wrapping up. It was an interesting dynamic. On the bright side, nobody else was coming in so we could sit as long as we wanted to take in the scenery. The setting by the mill is cool. On the weird side, you felt like you were just sitting in a half closed restaurant. The patron who had a table in the corner laid down on a ledge and napped while his female partner sat. On the other side patrons were laying out on deck. Quite interesting. Greek chilling at its best. Maybe I should have ordered that 3rd bottle after all!

And then we ask for the bill. The waiter said happy birthday to my friend (it was my birthday but whatever) and that was it. No song or hoopla which I didn’t mind but the inconsistency was noted.

It could have been sooo good. Oh well, close but no cigar. No...

Although the first time we went the food was great.... This time... We experienced something unseemly. I cannot believe, in all the travelling I've done, all the places I've eaten... (Both high class and low) The type of service and situation we just experienced here.....

We were a table of 6. We had with us a child who isn't super interested in the main courses and only wanted the shrimp tempura. We ordered her shrimp and for 45 min it didn't make it to the table. Meanwhile all other food has come... The child is sitting watching us all eat.. and can eat nothing. We told the wait staff, asked about the status, we were told sorry it'll be right out, oh 5 more minutes, then finally - there is so many orders of fried food that we are behind with the frying, then the waiter came to our table and said "because we asked so many times the chef has decided not to cook it anymore" ... WHAT ! WHAT?!?!? It's a kid ????? And we are regular customers?? We werent rude or anything. Then we went to the lobby area to talk to a manager, and the chef came out and YELLED AT US AND THE CHILD saying 'i don't care lady ! I don't care about a kid!"..... As we walked away they cussed at us in Greek.

My family is Turkish/American. We came to this restaurant and seemingly up until they noticed we were Turkish, they were nice. Our kid cried on the stairs next to the restaurant and the wait staff just walked by and watched her cry. I couldn't believe it. I really couldn't. Not only was there this insanity of bad service, but then this feeling of discrimination. I have never experienced anything like this. What an absolute disgusting display of Greek attitude and culture.

Never again. Please don't patronize this place. They got popular and now our if a sudden think they can treat people however they want.

UPDATE: RESPONSE TO OWNER'S COMMENT -

No, the truth of the matter is that we had a 9 year old child with us, who didn't get any food. We asked multiple times very politely where her food was. From the time we ordered the item (14:16) to the time you started yelling at us saying you didn't care if there was a child waiting (14:57) at least 45 min had passed. For an item that has 4-5 pieces of fried shrimp.... That's it. Doesn't take a major professional or genius to do. You yelled at us and yelled obscenities behind us with the child present. A child hearing that you don't care whether or not they get food is ridiculous don't you think? I've read your reviews here from repeat customers. It's obvious why you stay in the kitchen and your friend/brother is the one out with the tables. Your chef(you) has no manners and you acted in an primitive disgusting way. And now, you can't even admit to a moment of "stress" or blow up - you're saying I'm exaggerating. 🙃 I hope a restaurant opens next to you. It's obvious you're only in business because there's no other place to eat...

We wanted to experience this surprisingly well-known tavern based on the interestingly positive comments on this platform as well as on a few YouTube videos. We went there as a family of 5 out of which one is a vegan for whom we requested vegan type food. The waiter/representative of the tavern confirmed that the vegan food could be prepared by excluding or removing some ingredients of some appetisers and main course which were already listed on the menu. It was almost 2.45 p.m when we gave our orders and in half an hour time or so our orders were ready but there was no vegan option other than “boiled wild greens, Greek name horta”. My sister’s husband was still expecting something other than horta as agreed before when someone came and told us that the kitchen was about to close as it was almost quarter to four and they hadn’t been able to prepare any vegan type food. However my sister told that her husband was hungry and he had been expecting something as they had confirmed that they could have prepared vegan food but they said again a big NO. Then my sister insisted for at least having some tomato slices with some olive oil and my husband also had a little conversation with the guy who tried to be sort of “KIND(!)”. Then they agreed with bringing simply tomato slices and the only food my sister’s husband could get were those slices of tomato and horta (boiled wild greens) unfortunately like a bad joke as they first confirmed that they would have been able to prepare vegan food from what already offered on the menu; then they used the kitchen closing time as an excuse. No way! Not recommended for any type of food, bad and unkind approach in general; but the only valuable point was the view.

I needed to make some editions in order to correct as I got a response from the tavern claiming that we preferred a seafood restaurant although we all wanted to have vegan food; however as already mentioned above we were a group of 5 and 4 of us already eat and prefer both meat and seafood; fortunately and luckily and thanks God we are all clever people with high comprehension skills not to expect a seafood venue to turn out to be vegan bistro with a magic wand as if we were all vegans as claimed in the response. As majority of us were meat/ seafood lovers we simply wanted to have some food there unfortunately and asked whether there was a possibility for them to offer sort of vegan options, that was all. Well, then gentlemen you could have told that it was impossible for you to turn out to be magically to a vegan bistro before you accepted us. Also the response has some interesting details to be questioned and ununderstandable such as “fascism”. My sister’s husband who was the only vegan in our group is a Dutch man and I can hardly understand any relation with what we experienced...