Paraxenos Restaurant — Restaurant in Skiathos Municipality

We visited in early July 2019. Despite going to Skiathos for five years we'd never tried Paraxenos, but inspired by the reviews on here and other sites we decided to try it this time. On arrival a rather gruff waiter snapped "have you booked?" when we asked for a table, and when we confirmed that we hadn't he took us to a table.

The surroundings are a little odd. It's a courtyard between buildings, so despite the plants and decorations running around the edge of the seating area if you look upwards you find that the place is surrounded by apartments, so you frequently see people hanging washing out on their balconies, which shatters the intimacy somewhat.

We chose tzatziki to start. After a while a plate of pitta bread arrived, but no tzatziki. We managed to catch the attention of a waiter after a few minutes and explained that our starter hadn't turned up. He dashed off and returned with a plate of tzatziki, which we tucked into, then came back a few minutes later, snatched our pitta bread off us, and replaced it with a new plate which was warm. We saw that a nearby table had a similar issue too where their starter didn't arrive before their main course.

For our mains I ordered kleftiko, and my wife chose the moussaka. The kleftiko arrived in a pot and was a lamb shank surrounded by potatoes and covered with a golden crust of melted cheese. For some reason the waiters then tip this out onto a plate before you and this completely ruins the appearance, making it clear that the dish is mainly potatoes with only a small lamb shank (which was oddly tasteless - the menu advised that it was frozen) and the cheese strangely disappeared. My wife told me that the moussaka was mainly aubergines and little else.

All in all it was very average, service wasn't great, and I don't think we'll go back if we return to Skiathos...

First of all, service is excellent, everyone were so polite and helpful. We came around 19:30h and didn't have to wait for table although we didn't have reservation. When we were leaving about 20:30h 2 or 3 couples were waiting in the line for free table, but you can't feel that in restaurant, nobody rushes you to finish your dinner. Food was good, little bit pricey but there is a feeling that they tried to do some modern twist with the food and doing that, some of true taste of Greek soul food was lost. For example tzatziki is excellent, I really recommend it, but they don't have pita bread with it or some that you can order, there is some homemade bread that you can order and the taste of it with tzatziki is not too good. My husband had moussaka and it lacked a bit of salt, it had an average taste, we had better ones in Skiathos. I had kleftiko that was very good, meat was excellent, and potatoes were to die for, but the lemon in sauce was a bit strong, it somehow overtaked a whole dish. Atmosphere is a bit stiff for our taste and maybe that was the thing that bothered us the most and that's probably why we won't come back, at...

Couldn't fault this place, have to say it was our favourite eatery of the holiday!

Highly recommend this on your stay in Skiathos. The service team were impeccably trained, from their matching aprons and white tees, to their recommendations on the menu and just couldn't do enough. It made for a really special experience.

I am pregnant which in other places hasn't left me with a lot of options but this place has a homemade lemonade to die for.

For food we had the bruschetta, salmon parpedelle and lamb kleftiko. All cooked to perfection. If you're a meat eater though the lamb fell of the bone and came with a bit of wow factor.

Then finally when getting the bill they handed us a digestive for my husband and noticing I was pregnant a little pot of ice cream for me which I thought was such a lovely touch.

I highly recommend booking in peak season as it fills up quickly. It a gorgeous outdoor space with flowers around the place. Very nice ambient atmosphere.

It's a little off the main strip. Blink and you'll miss it but it's...