ΚΛΗΜΑΤΑΡΙΑ — The vine canopy
Time moves differently in the courtyard.
Kato Paphos. Stone walls, one vine, and a fire that was lit at eleven this morning. Lunch here has been known to end after dark.
Today — ofto
Sunday 4 October
The lamb went into the pit before first light. Ofto until it is finished, and the kitchen stops at six.
The ritual
Nobody orders. The plates simply keep arriving.
You make one decision at the start, then you stop deciding.
Meze is a sequence, not a course.
Bread and the three dips first, while the fire settles. Then the cold plates, then whatever came out of the pan. Somewhere past the middle the sheftalia arrives and the conversation stops for a moment.
Twenty-two plates on a full night, priced per person, wine apart. Two people minimum. Tell us when you have had enough — nobody here is offended by that.
22
plates, at the pace of the kitchen
€34
per person, the whole sequence
2½h
and that is if you are in a hurry
Three of the twenty-two
03 — 22
Halloumi, charred
The halloumi comes down from the mountain village at dawn, still in its whey. Mint from the wall behind the kitchen. The salt is scraped off the coastal rocks.
Olives, cracked
Struck with a stone rather than cut, coriander seed cracked over them, a week in the jar with lemon. They are the first thing on the table and the last thing left on it.
Pita, wood-fired
Fourteen seconds against the oven floor, blistered on one side, torn not cut. It arrives four times over the evening.
The list
Roughly this, most nights.
Written in the kitchen each afternoon, after the boats and the village van. There is no PDF to download and there never will be — a list that cannot change by Thursday is not a taverna's list.
Tahini · taramosalata · tzatziki
with pita from the oven, all night
Lountza · hiromeri
smoked loin, wine-cured ham, sliced thin
Koupepia
vine leaves off our own canopy, rolled at nine
Louvi with chard
black-eyed beans, oil, half a lemon
Kolokithokeftedes
courgette and anari, fried in the pan
Salingaria
snails stewed in wine and tomato
Octopus on charcoal
hung two days first, vinegar, oil, oregano
Whatever the boats brought
red mullet, picarel, bream — whole, salted, grilled
Kolokasi with pork
taro, celery, lemon — winter only
Anari with carob syrup
and a plate of fruit, which is dessert
MEAT €34 · FISH €40 · FROM THE GARDEN €28 — per person, and the fire is included in all three.
The fire
A fire that hasn't gone out in thirty years.
The foukou is a metre of steel and a hand crank, and the pork on it takes ninety minutes whoever is waiting. The kleftiko goes into the clay oven sealed with a rope of dough the night before and comes out at seven; when it is gone, it is gone.
On Sundays a whole lamb goes into the pit at dawn — ofto — and the courtyard tables are given away by Thursday.
Souvla
Pork shoulder, thumb-sized. Salt, lemon, ninety minutes, one turn of the crank a minute.
Kleftiko
Lamb shoulder, bay, cinnamon. Sealed at midnight, opened at seven. Twelve portions.
Sheftalia
Pork and parsley in caul fat, straight over embers. The plate people describe afterwards.
Ofto — Sundays
Whole lamb and potatoes, buried at dawn. Book it; do not chance it.
The family & the room
Recipes that outlive the people who wrote them.
Twelve tables under the vine, nine inside when the wind turns.
The building was a net store, then a bakery, and the oven is the bakery's. We whitewashed the walls, kept the beams, and planted nothing — the vine was already here and is older than the licence.
Courtyard tables are first come after nine. Inside is bookable, and in August you should.
The upper terrace
Four tables above the wall, and the coast road going quiet.
A table
Ask for the vine, and come before the light goes.
WhatsApp is the fastest way in — tell us how many, what time, and whether anyone is not eating meat. If you want the kleftiko or the Sunday ofto, say so when you book. Both run out.
The courtyard
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