Mythos Fish Restaurant, Symi: Nice Place if You Like Fish

Sometimes life on a Greek island can be a little bit hard, if you are not a fan of seafood and do not like the taste and smell of fish or calamari. It is a pity for Illy, because there is a very good fish and seafood restaurant in Symi Town, right next to the scenic harbour, which offers very creative and interesting seafood cuisines. The chef was born in Athens and has worked in different European countries before returning to Greece and decided to settle down on Symi and open this nice little restaurant.

Whenever Illy strolls by Mythos' Fish Restaurant during one of her evening walks around the entire length of Symi's beautiful harbour, there are always a number of people at the outdoor dining section enjoying their seafood dinners against the picturesque backdrop of Symi's photogenic harbour view. After a few days of observation, I went up to the restaurant during their afternoon break, and asked the chef who happened to be outside having a cigarette break if they have anything on the menu suitable for non-fish eaters.

The chef and owner, Stavros, is a friendly man who decides to revamp the original rustic little harbour-side tavern into a stylish place with formal dinner service and a pretty extensive wine list. To my disappointment, the menu comprises 99% of fish and other seafoods, no poultry or meat whatsoever, but there are a few salad dishes which can be useful to non-fish eaters or vegetarians. 

The restaurant has been featured in a few British newspapers, hence a sizeable numbers of diners are also European tourists who are vacationing on the island of Symi. Nevertheless, the chef is very positively surprised that someone from outside of Europe and the US is actually interested in having a meal at his restaurant, and he assured me that I won't be disappointed even if it was just a simple salad dish.

So I decided to give it a try. One noteworthy difference between this restaurant and most other Greek taverns serving local seafood specialities is, the chef actually does try to make his dishes more innovative and cosmopolitian by applying different cooking techniques and adding plenty of herbs to his sauces and stew. The result reminds me of the fusion Mediterranean cuisine I had tasted during my travel in southern France and the Cote d'Azur, with lots of freshly picked herbs and savoury sauces. As I have always found the usual Greek tavern fares, although tasty, a bit too mundane and ordinary, this place offers a welcoming alternative to the normal Greek staples of meat, bread and cucumber salads mixed together with olive oil, vinegar and garlic sauce.

In order to avoid the dinner crowds, I went to the restaurant as soon as the dinner service began at 5pm.

As it was too early for dinner for most people, the place was quite empty and I ordered some house wines to go with my appetizers - olives steeped in olive oils pefumed with fresh herbs and red peppercorns. The rose was fairly strong, and goes very well with the slightly pungent taste of the olives.

It was a bit of a headache when it comes to ordering the main course. As I do not eat fish or squids or shrimps, I decided to have a try at probably the only seafood I ever dare to consume - mussels. The photo above is mussels with fresh herbs, garlic, onion, diced tomato and feta cheese cooked in a white-wine sauce. I had had similar dish on the island of Kalymnos a few years ago and that tasted great, so I thought it would be interesting to have a go again at this place. Just as I was halfway through my dinner, some locals who also ordered this dish told me the 'correct' way to enjoy this is to soak the breads provided by the restaurant in the sauce and wait till the breads all become soft and tender, full with the sauce. In fact I saw one of the fellow  Greek diners simply soak all the breads in the sauce, finish up each and every of them, and wiped the plate clean, but leave the mussels intact. Not sure if that is how Greeks enjoy their mussels cooked in a white-wine sauce at a up-market seafood restaurant, but they assured me that this is the best way to savour the true essence of this dish.

Mythos Restaurant
Yialos Harbourside (ask any locals and they will point out the place to you - it's easy to find)

Copyrights@2011. All text and photos by Illy the Shiba Inu. All Rights Reserved.