Meze *2 — Restaurant in Municipality of Naxos and the Lesser Cyclades

The Meze2 enjoys a great reputation. It was recommended to us by friends and we read a lot about it online however we were very disappointed to find out that the service was overall very poorly. It seems as if the fame "got over their head". The food was good however you could sense the lack of effort of the majority of the waiters. The restaurant is super crowded so of course they have a very demanding job and you can see that they are tired which is not what bothers me but we had about 6 different waiters from beginning to end so it was everything else but a personal service and everyone just executed one task which meant always waiting for one of them to tell the other what to do and then waiting for that one to execute. When they served our food I saw the waiter going to 3 other different tables with OUR dishes before arriving at our table (he did not have to serve anything else on those tables, he just did not know which table ordered it). So not only was the food not hot anymore (just warm) but in my opinion you should be more careful when serving food in times of Corona. The second disappointment was when we asked to take the leftovers home and the waiter just brought us a box and a plastic bag without any comment or explanation as to why they would not pack it for us (I have never experienced this and I have been to cheap street restaurants as well as gourmet, fine dining). Lastly, when we asked for the bill we had to wait super long eventhough many tables were clearing and many waiters were free (but of course the division of labor was so absurd that the waiters that were free were just sitting down and the ones doing the bills were very busy apparently). If you value a good service I cannot recommend this place to you. It was unlike everything else we have experienced on the island. In case you were wondering, the leftovers we took home were from the shrimp Greek pasta which was amazing (just not hot unfortunately) so in case you decide to go anyways at least you won't be disappointed by the taste...

We were seated by the owner who gave us the option of where we wanted to sit despite having an extremely busy restaurant, accompanied with a cheeky ‘I’m the boss so what I say goes.’ Good introduction to the place and a good humoured, down to earth approach that we both liked.

Food was great and the portions were huge. I had the fisherman’s saganaki which I only just finished. The pile of empty mussel shells filled up the entire serving dish that the accompanying fries came on, whilst there was also multiple squid rings and I think four enormous tiger prawns. We also had the grilled ‘Gouna’ (mackerel) which was excellent. A dish of olives that cost €4 was also enormous whilst the zucchini fritters were also very good.

Great atmosphere and great service as well, a drinks order came before the owner had even left the table after submitting it on his mobile device. High turnover is probably their key but it wouldn’t be the place that you’d go to for an elongated meal. We wanted a quick and tasty meal and for that it...

Extremely disappointing. I specifically asked the waiter if the seafood was fresh before ordering the mussel risotto. The risotto I received was far from what you'd expect—more similar to what you'd find in a school cafeteria, a sticky blob of rice. The mussels were rubbery and their shells were breaking, a clear sign they weren't fresh. I reluctantly ate some of it to avoid making a scene. I declined the complimentary dessert and I asked for the bill saying that the risotto wasn’t good and I just wanted to leave the place. The restaurant simply removed the dish from the bill. This isn't enough. If you can't make a proper risotto, don't have it on the menu. If you don't have fresh seafood, don't serve it, or at least don’t lie, you risk giving people food poisoning.

The place it’s not cheap either, It’s unacceptable to charge these prices while serving such poor-quality food

I had to take antacids to sleep after this terrible...