Vassilikos — Restaurant in Municipality of Thira

Let`s start with the good stuff:

Staff is very friendly. We walked by the restaurant when we first arrived in Santorini and were greeted by the owner - I think - who promised the food is excellent and that the bill will be taken care of, if the food didnt taste good. Well sadly: it didnt and the bill wasn`t on the house.

This was very dissappointing, as we were celebrating a very special occasion and had decided on this restaurant.

First my partner decided to order the "100% beef burger" with no bacon, because he doesn`t eat pork, to be told that the "100% beef burger" is only about 70-90% beef. This was very well documented for some reason... wait for it - on our dinner table. Yes, you read that right.

We changed the order and got something else. Before that, a "complimentary" (or so we thought) basket of bread with two dips was served. The pink dip was good, the olive dip was way too salty. The mains came and they tasted like nothing. I had the Calamari which was served with a nice puree. But it didnt go well together and the calamari was not seasoned and burnt at the tips. The Chicken Souvlaki was tough on some parts and also not seasoned well. The Tzatziki didnt have garlic or lemon or anything that made it Tzatziki and not just plain yoghurt.

After the - sorry - terrible main course we decided to skip on dessert.

We were further dissappointed when the bill came. The "complimentary bread basket" we never asked for was not complimentary. They charged 3,00€ for it and called it a tax....

A week in Santorini and we've had an amazing time, with top banter with the restauranteurs on the front as they peddle their wares and try to tempt us in to their restaurants. We hadn't had a bad experience or sub-par food until tonight. Unfortunately the restaurant here is the worst experience we've had over here.

I'll not write this in to a full and padded out review, but a list of what didn't go to plan.

1. took a good 10 minutes for a waiter to acknowledge us.

2. half way through taking the order, our waiter disappeared, came back and apologised as he had to make sure he saw a table out (assuming tip-chasing)

3. two chicken dishes. The first was ok, although the sun dried tomatoes overpowered all other flavours in the stuffed chicken. The souvlaki was dry and seemed to be more offcuts of brown meat than the quality meat we've had elsewhere on the island.

4. the second round of drinks were ordered and never arrived.

5. upon getting the bill, the waiter apologised for the second drinks and when he brought the card machine came with a bottle of coke on the house.. then hovered after payment needing the table, making drinking it intimidating and rushed.

6. there was non existent bread on the bill, although it was promptly struck through when...

They have seats set up on the beach, but there’s no platform to walk to your seat and the chairs are unstable in the sand. A little boy at the table in front of us fell off his chair and I nearly did the same thing. Waiters come round with what they make out to be complimentary pita bread and dip - it’s not complimentary. We ordered the chicken gyros and “fajitas” from the Mexican section of the menu. The other chicken gyros on the island for £4.50 are a LOT nicer, the chicken was dry. The “fajitas” were the villain of the show - absolutely rotten, one wrap with strange (definitely not fajita) spices drenched in some form of cheese sauce, with some nachos clearly from a supermarket packet of crisps/chips. The cheese sauce they put on the fajitas hadn’t been mixed properly and still had clumps of flour in it. The most expensive meal we’ve had in Kamari and a serious contender (of only two) for the worst meal...