Page 32 - Travel Leisure - USA (February 2020)

E X P E R I E N C E S

SUN, SAND, AND STONE
end of a barely paved road on Páros,
Páros has long been the connoisseur’s Greek island, cherished for its the third largest in the group of islands
simple pleasures and secluded atmosphere. Now the debut of a design- known as the Cyclades. A few worn
focused hotel is raising the bar on style. BY MICHAEL JOSEPH GROSS wooden tables and chairs are arranged
by the water, in the shade of tamarisk
trees. My friend Kalia Konstantinidou,
who splits her time between Athens
HE BLADE OF the swordfish is not sharp. and Santorini and has just opened a
T My palm is wrapped around it. When chef hotel on Páros, suggested we come
Marios Salmatanis tells me to lift it, and I here. After Salmatanis and Kouda
do, I almost laugh—it’s so much lighter than it beckon us into the kitchen to see their
looks. The hilt is heavy, though: the head of an catch, we order lunch, kick off our flip-
From left:
Hellenistic-period 80-pound creature that stretches all the way flops, and dive into the ocean, which is
statuary at Páros’s down the stainless-steel kitchen counter of the a pale turquoise, like the iris of a cat’s
archaeological restaurant. “Our first swordfish in two years!” eye. We come up smiling, water
museum; dining
under the Salmatanis exclaims. His wife, Anna Kouda, trickles into my mouth, and it is so
tamarisk trees explains, “We only serve fish that is fresh-caught delicious and gently salty that I tell
at Thalassamou, and local. If it’s too windy for the boats, we just Kalia she has to taste it. For a moment,
on Aliki Beach; don’t have fish.” there is only sea, sky, sun, our bodies
sunbathers at
Kolympithres The restaurant, Thalassamou (thalassamou.gr; about to be fed—a sense of lightness so
Beach. entrees $11Ð$30)—Greek for “my sea”—sits at the complete and unexpected.

28 T R AV E L + L E I S U R E | F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 0 PHOTOGRAPHS BY MARCO ARGUELLO