Essence — Restaurant in Zakynthos Municipality

My partner and I visited Essence on our first evening after falling in love with the place when we walked past. We made a reservation and indeed, were very warmly welcomed into the restaurant, which was very much appreciated and immediately put us at ease. Both ladies looking after us were very kind in helping us choose our food items, and they made sure everything was okay throughout - but without us feeling as if our personal space was being invaded. The food was absolutely exceptional. The ambience was very very special as well: Beautiful birds tweeting amongst glistening fairy lights as the last of the summer sun set. We loved it so much that we visited for a second evening, and everything remained 10/10! (A rare surprise nowadays). Thank you from the bottom of our hearts.

P.s., we felt the prices were definitely lower than the whole quality and experience, which is why we tipped on both evenings. In England we would have for sure been expected to pay at least 150-175 for the whole food...

Visited Essence for our second experience of the holiday our last night. This time instead of having a starter and a main course we decided to stick to the tapas having six dishes between the two of us. Prior to getting our order we had the on the house food aperitif to get the taste buds going.

The dishes we decide to have were: Cauliflower steak (cooked thick slice of cauliflower in light spices, Greek yogurt, egg, breadcrumbs) Crab Kataifi (hand picked crab meat rolled and fried in Kataifi pastry, sesame mayo) Sea bass sashimi (cured sea bass with soya and sesame seed sauce which I think has treacle mixed in with it) Albondigas (duck meatballs, almond aioli, fresh mint)

As I said we had six dishes so to make it up to six we had two off the crab Kataifi and ordered up the Paella arancini (seafood rice croquettes, tomato confit, Parmesan.

For drinking we had a bottle of wine

Service was great, food was great, and the ambiance was great. A very nice place to have a special meal. Will...

Unique tastes that you would have anywhere on the island. We have visited the restaurant twice, once in winter of 2015 with another couple, and in summer of 2016 just us. For some reason daily specialties were the same both times although the owners reassured us that they change their dishes. During winter we visited around 20:00 on Friday and we were the only ones at that time. That's the only "negatives" that we could think. All of the dishes from appetizers, fish, pork, chicken and quail that we tried were great and unique. We ended up having a bit more fried options that we liked to, both times, but it was not an issue. The prices are one the high side. So, a couple would need around 70 euros for a 4 course menu...