The taverna we love on Sifnos does not appear in guides, which is why it still exists in its proper form. Eight tables under a tamarisk tree, the harbour ten paces below, and a menu that is read aloud by the owner's mother and then amended according to what the boats brought in.
Cycladic cooking is the art of not interfering. Octopus dried on a line in the sun, then grilled over vine cuttings and finished with nothing but lemon and the memory of the sea. Tomatoes that taste of the volcanic soil they grew in. Capers picked from the cliff. A chickpea stew that takes a night in a wood oven and explains, in one spoonful, why patience is the first ingredient of Greek food.
The wine is Assyrtiko from Santorini — vines trained into ground-hugging baskets against the wind, grapes that taste of salt and stone. It costs less than the view and outperforms wines ten times its price, which the Greeks regard as simply fair.
Our chefs go ashore on every Aegean call and come back with crates and ideas. What appears at dinner that night aboard — the grilled octopus, the dakos, the honey-drenched loukoumades — is the taverna, translated. The original is still there, ten paces above the harbour. We will take you to it.
