5SENSES | Greek Vegan Restaurant Santorini — Restaurant in Municipality of Thira

We went here twice, once for lunch and then came back for dinner. The lunch was great, streetfood style, food and we had vegan kebab and mushroom gyros (seriously good!) and the best vegan tzatziki we ever tasted (we even bought a bucket to take home!) all came served with some fresh veggies and tasty fries. The vegan kebab was nicely seasoned and the texture was also good - as we recall it was a soy-vegetable base. The mushroom gyros left nothing to be desired, the gyros seasoning gave me instant throwback to eating regular gyros at my last trip to Greece 20 years ago, the texture was reminiscent of chicken but with great mushroom umami - we left full and satisfied.

We came back for dinner, based on our perfect first impression, because there was a separate dinner menu. We found it amazing to have these many vegan options for dinner - kodus for that! Unfortunately we were not completely blown away by the evening menu. We shared the mushroom patsas (soup), and then we had a linguine pesto dish and the portobello 'steak'. The linguine dish was a little under-salted and over-acidic and the acidity was hard to balance with the condiments made available on the table. The portobello dish was a little too basic for it's price-mark. The patsas however was great and we got the option to season it to our own taste. The corn soup amuse bouche was actually great too - would've bought that as a dish!

After learning that the place is recently opened we agreed that the effort was commendable and we will love to come back in the future to see how the menu develops. The service at the restaurant was great and we got some good tips for vegan eateries in other parts of Santorini as well. This is effectively a 4,5 star review, but we are rounding down so there is some room to grow - We whole-heartedly recommend anyone, vegan and non-vegans alike, to go and try...

The most i appreciate from the visit to this restaurant is the food -for the mind- it gave me. I came out with a lot of questions.

What is more respectful with nature … the planet, ourselves and our digestive systems … specially in a little island like Santorini : crazy vegan gourmet food made from hundred of ingredients coming from all over the world? Or simple non vegan food based on local ingredients?

And i ask this as a person who bases his diet on plants from more than 12 years. But its just very interesting to me …

I feel like this restaurant preaches something that is not happening in the reality. On the surface everything is beautiful green and kind. “The lovely inner connection to nature.” But on depth, has no authenticity … feels forced, fake … a “green” business with no soul. Even the plants and fruits you can see all over are plastic.

On other hand, my body didn’t feel good at all after this experience, even though the food tasted great. What brought me another question: Is this fancy gourmet vegan movement Healthy at all?

Is it really helping the planet and ourselves?

I don’t have the answers but i think sometimes the questions are more valuable than the answers.

Probably im not the target client of this restaurant. But anyways im super happy i had the opportunity to be there and see and experience the direction and aspects that some “healthy connected culinary movements” are taking. Personally, i like to keep it simple. Much...

100% plant based restaurant with lots of gluten free options. The restaurant is visually very nice with a lovely outdoor area in the centre of Fira. They have the restaurant upstairs and a kind of street dessert parlour downstairs that sells delicious vegan doughnuts.

Very friendly staff who will happily chat with you about the menu and their recommendations. Very accommodating for example, when there was sediment in my wine they quickly gave me a fresh glass without quibble and set about googling wine sediment!

Lots of options on the menu, unfortunately they were out of the shrimp souvlaki and are no longer selling the kebab (for some reason it is still showing on their menu, but they said it was because kebab was sold everywhere so they took it off? Didn’t really make sense to me).

It is quite expensive and this made the food a bit more disappointing. We had the pesto linguini and the penne carbonara. Both were very under seasoned to the point of being bland, made a bit worse by the fact there is no salt and pepper on the tables (must be requested). Once we had seasoned them, they were nice but not amazing. Given how delicious their desserts were downstairs, in particular the tahini doughnut, I’d like to think this was a blip. Either way, certainly worth visiting for the lovely restaurant, staff...