Grandes Seaside restaurant — Restaurant in Municipality of Sitia

My name is Peter Galifianakis. I live in the USA ! I was born on this rich & wonderful island of Crete and I am presently here again on my annual extended vacation! As a former restauranteur I have enjoyed its simple earthy diversity of its cuisine in every province. This week I have been in the Sitia area on the far east end of the island and have eaten in at least a dozen restaurants in and around the city and I can honestly say that they have been excellent in their very traditional presentation.. Today however it was different! I was taken to a lovely wind surfing beach area called Kouremenos.. It is close to the ancient village of Palekastro... Where we ate at a simply beautiful restaurant under the Palm trees named GRANDES ! As in the other restaurants I Ordered my usual simple fare of Smelts, grilled Kalamari, Horta and potatoes! I can honestly rate most of the places I eat in Crete an 8 to 10 … (yes most are that good )… but this simple menu at GRANDES was off the charts…simply stated it was heavenly, absolutely divine! I’m still mystified how this very simple fare ...so common every where here in Crete …be so delightfully different in this wonderful beachside restaurant at Kouremenos Beach Sitia...

We visited "Grandes" as we wanted to combine a relaxed night with a fine dinner and Yes it was a really good choice! The food was good prepared and really tasty. We had a lot of starters and a nice green salad. For main course we got the shrimps pasta, Mushrooms risotto and "Tagliata" beef steak . All of the plates were delicious but most of all the best part of the dinner was the steak and specially the grilling of it ( medium-rare as we ordered) SO: extra stars for the grill master Mr. Vaggelis! The service is excellent, always there for you with a bright smile and a lot of kindness! What can we say for the atmosphere... The place is surrounded by trees, flowers, grass and the see just a few metres from the tables! Over all...

This restaurant is something we like and we've been here four times. The food and service were great the last three times we went here, but this time I'm quite disappointed. The octopus that I ordered was grilled, but it was hard and cold. I let the waiter know and he took my plate back to the kitchen. After a few minutes, the waiter returned with the same plate that I had. Because the cook only warmed it up, the octopus became worse than before. It was dry, hard, and like rubber. We complained about my food and they never came to our table again. We wanted to order more drinks, but they didn't come to our table for 45 minutes until we decided to go to the cashier...