Petousis Restaurant — Restaurant in Municipality of Malevizi

I was eager to try authentic Cretan cuisine but felt too exhausted to venture all the way to the old city of Herakleion, where many highly recommended taverns are located. Luckily, I discovered Petousis just around the corner from my apartment, and it turned out to be a fantastic find.

The atmosphere here is absolutely wonderful—spacious, welcoming, and family-friendly. They even have a complimentary kids’ play area that kept our little one happily entertained, while the staff were exceptionally warm and attentive. The waiters clearly have great knowledge of the menu and were eager to share their insights.

For my meal, I chose the lamb antikristo, and it was cooked to absolute perfection—tender, flavorful, and paired beautifully with the Cretan version of risotto, Gamopilafo. We also tried their gemista, and I can confidently say it’s some of the best I’ve had in Greece—rich, delicious, and complemented perfectly by a side of flavorful yogurt.

We accompanied our meal with their homemade red wine, which added a lovely, authentic touch to the dining experience. Our child enjoyed the chicken nuggets from the kids’ menu, which were fresh and tasty.

To top off our visit, the staff graciously offered us complimentary araki, fresh fruits, and sweets—a charming gesture that made us feel truly valued.

I highly recommend Petousis for anyone seeking excellent Cretan food served with genuine hospitality and a relaxed, friendly vibe. A perfect spot for families and food...

We went in because we thought that if there are many people sitting it must be good. From the outside it does look a lovely place. We weren’t right about that… the waiters are running around the place, no one really pays attention to you, you really have to hunt down them. We have ordered some lamb chops and a grilled fish. After 40 minutes of waiting I have asked one of the waiter if it’s possible to check our order because we have ordered a long time ago, and others who came later even got their foods. We have waited nearly an hour for just two dishes, the waiter without any sorry just put the food down and left. The lamb was really dry and chewy, the sea bream was grilled to the point that it got really burned and all you could taste was the bitter burnt taste. The side of salad wasn’t anything special just cabbage and some arugula chopped up with olive oil and a little lemon juice. When I asked for the check, because we wanted to leave ASAP the waiter just mumbled back to me that “yea, check sure” and he left, he didn’t even want to stop for us. They served us a dessert, I can say that was the only tasty thing during the whole lunch. It is hard to serve everyone if the whole restaurant is packed, but we really didn’t have a good lunch there. I wouldn’t really recommend this place. Also it is really expensive compared all the other restaurants where we have had...

Really bad experience! Since the first step in I noticed that the waiters are like angry or fed up with the work there. Then we ordered as a starter octopus and as a main dish I ordered lamb chops and my girlfriend fried cheese. They brought octopus and fried cheese together even if we explained that we want cheese as main and the waiter said ok. Octopus was bad, definitely not fresh, fried cheese also, they brought both so fast that there is no way they were freshly made. No water or some small appetizer before the meal like in almost all other normal Cretan restaurants... Lamb chops looked ok, but without taste and not equally grilled, also very strong/tough, even antichristo lamb that I ate in the Cretan mountains was not that tough! But the most disturbing thing was that one waiter was jumping around making noises to scare away cats in the restaurants, moving chairs so the cats would run away, but they were back a few seconds later, it looked really incompetent and that's the first restaurant in Crete where I actually wanted to leave already at the beginning...I also told waiter that we cancel the order like 30seconds later when we ordered but he said that the order went to the kitchen already... So we stayed and try to finish asap and just leave. I definitely don't...