Pyrgos Restaurant — Restaurant in Municipality of Thira

If I could describe our visit to Pyrgos Restaurant in one word, I’d use “disappointing.”

The restaurant’s location is beautiful and has sweeping views of the island. Unfortunately, a good view does not a good restaurant make. And unlike most of the people reviewing here I review restaurants for food and service, not instagram pics.

Our reservation was for 8pm. We arrived early at 740pm and were seated promptly by the kind host. We reviewed the menu, and then we waited. And waited. And waited. Nobody offered us water, bread, or anything.

A waitress finally showed up to the table well after 8PM and took our whole order in one go. By the time our cocktails arrived it was 820PM. 40 minutes seated before our first drink. To the bartender’s credit my old fashioned was pretty good.

We ordered the fried calamari, a huge mistake as it was tough and chewy. I’ve had calamari on the island over the past few days and each time it was tender and delicious. Here, it was rubber.

I ordered the lamb leg which was braised and served rolled inside lace fat with potatoes. It was tasty but served to me cold… not very appetizing.

My wife ordered the shrimp risotto which was just awful. Her first bite was greeted with a mouthful of grit. I tasted as well and agreed that it was extremely fishy, with an ammonia flavor/aroma. Clearly old fish and/or frozen, definitely not fresh. She never sends food back but had to do so tonight.

The staff seemed offended by us calling the dish fishy but there’s really no other way to describe it - good seafood should not be fishy.

My wife ordered pork saganaki as a replacement dish to steer away from seafood. It was bland and the pork was over cooked, very chewy.

One note, there was a wedding happening tonight as well as a large party of 30 or so guests in a room at the same time as dinner service. Staff seemed to be spread thin with waiters also bussing tables and running food. The entire place seemed a bit disorganized and the food just did not deliver. My recommendation; come for a drink and take in the views, but enjoy a...

We had high expectations for this restaurant and it’s certainly a beautiful spot, but the food let the experience down badly. The google reviews were good, so we were looking forward to eating here, but it seems we were unlucky.

Our starters were great - we had the liver and the potato rocks and both were very tasty.

For main we ordered the seafood platter to share. It was €85 and looked amazing, but sadly everything on it was overcooked and so dry. We were struggling to understand how a chef could have cooked so many different pieces of fish and seafood so badly, and the conclusion we’ve come to is that the platter must have been left under a lamp / warmer for too long after it was ready. There was quite a delay between our starters being cleared and the seafood platter being served. Also we were brought the stand for the platter some considerable time before the platter itself arrived.

We did tell one of the waiters the food was dry, but he smiled and nodded - there was a language barrier there and he didn’t understand. And we had obviously left a lot of the fish uneaten.

At the end of the meal we tried again to explain the seafood platter was dry and overcooked. This time we were understood and someone came over to speak to us. But we were still charged the full bill, which we paid. We were offered a free dessert, but by this time we were already about to leave. And also we wanted to get out of there as there was a table of six nearby where three men were all selfishly smoking large cigars. They stank out the restaurant which very unpleasant whilst people are eating. I’m surprised the staff allowed this in the covered area - there was an outdoor area where they could have sat and it would have been less of an issue. But maybe this is common in Greece - it’s odd to me because I’m used to the UK having rightly banned smoking in restaurants...

The views and ambiance here are wonderful, but a couple things made this a 4 star experience rather than 5. First off, I ordered the Paloma grapefruit cocktail (which is 17€), and it arrived without the rosemary salt on the rim. This was a bummer because without that detail, it felt like just drinking a grapefruit soda. The waitress was very kind when I mentioned it and told me she would bring me another one when I mentioned it. She did, but the second one arrived with the salt, but no garnish. For 17€ I feel like it should be a perfect cocktail, so the inconsistency was a bummer. It was also a LOT of ice and not much drink. Not a good start.

We ordered three appetizers—the tzatziki and pita, tomato balls and filo feta with honey. This was a lot of food for the price! We definitely over ordered. The apps were all good, but none were stand outs for us. We could only eat one of each thing, too, so unfortunately we had a lot of wasted food.

For our main courses my husband got the leg of lamb and I got the grilled shrimp. The lamb was great, and came deboned with a sweet brown gravy sauce. The grilled shrimp were delicious and the sides were interesting, but not my favorite. The creamed corn side was served cold, which had a great flavor, but the chilled aspect threw me off a bit. The side salad tasted very salty to me.

We ordered a bottle of Atlantis red wine and that was really good! We’d drink that again.

Overall the views were lovely and the staff was friendly, but the food and drinks was underwhelming for the price for us. We wouldn’t go back or...