The Imerovigli house that brought Koukoumavlos back to Santorini

Katikies Chromata stands at the highest point of Imerovigli, Santorini, on the rim of the caldera, with 180-degree views over the water. The house is small, 4 rooms, 22 suites, 1 villa, and the rooms cascade down the cliff face, finished in monochrome against the Aegean light. Every room and suite has its own veranda over the drop.

The house also holds a restaurant whose history runs back to 1989. Koukoumavlos, which Nikos Pouliasis opened in Oia in October 1989, was announced closed for good in January 2020, after three decades on the island. In March 2023 it reopened at Chromata, under the Katikies group, which runs seven luxury hotels across Mykonos and Santorini.

The ground

Imerovigli is the caldera village known as the Balcony on the Aegean, dotted with small restaurants and facing the sunset head on. Fira, the island’s capital, is about 5 minutes away by car, and the airport is 10 kilometres off. There is no car park at the hotel: parking is public and 2 minutes’ walk away. The nearest beach is about 20 minutes away by car.

Koukoumavlos

Pouliasis came to Santorini in 1980 and cooked at the historic Lotza before he opened anything of his own. He moved his restaurant twice inside Fira in the years that followed. The Greek tourism trade press, reporting on 16 March 2023, read its arrival at Chromata as the revival of one of the most important restaurants on the island.

The kitchen is Ettore Botrini with Nikos Pouliasis, and Koukoumavlos serves dinner only, 7pm to 11pm. Botrini has been the Katikies group’s executive chef since February 2022, appointed across its hotels on Santorini and Mykonos. In 2021 he had taken over Selene, Santorini’s long-standing gastronomic landmark.

Koukoumavlos is the main room. Above it, on the top level of the hotel, are the Katikies Lounge and an aperitivo bar. Under the group’s Katikies Club arrangement, a guest of one house has access to the restaurants of every Katikies property for the length of the stay, which puts the kitchens in Oia, Fira and Mykonos within reach of a dinner reservation.

The rooms

There are seven categories, and they run from a 25 square metre Junior Suite with a bedroom and sitting area to a 96 square metre Master Pool Suite with an open-plan living room and an open-air plunge pool. Between them stand the Senior Suite at 35 square metres, the Superior Suite at 50, the Superior Outdoor Jetted Tub Suite at 50, the Honeymoon Jetted Tub Suite at 57 with a two-post jetted tub, and the Chromata Infinity Pool Suite at 82, which adds a walk-in wardrobe and a heated open-air plunge pool. The house names the Master Pool Suite and the Chromata Infinity Pool Suite as its top two categories. Every private pool and jetted tub is heated to about 23 degrees, though the weather still has a say in it. Every veranda looks at the caldera.

The villas

Two villas sit alongside the hotel. Chromata Villa runs to 165 square metres for up to five people, with an outdoor plunge pool. Katikies Cycladic House is the larger of the pair at 700 square metres, sleeps up to ten guests, looks out over the caldera and the open Aegean, and has a heated pool of 32 square metres.

Pool, spa and children

There is one shared pool, an outdoor infinity pool filled with fresh water, open from 11am to 7pm. There is no spa on the property: a treatment is arranged at Katikies Garden, the group’s house in Fira. The hotel takes guests aged 13 and over, and families with younger children are pointed to Katikies Garden as well. Small pets up to 5 kilos are allowed. Breakfast runs from 8am to 11.15am, room service is on call around the clock, and a private transfer takes up to four people. Check-in is from 3pm, and check-out is until 11am.

Who is this for

Couples, and friends travelling in pairs, who like a small house on a high ledge and want dinner to be the event of the day. The mood is quiet and domestic: whitewashed walls, hard white light off the water, the sunset arriving at your own railing. Katikies Club arranges tailor-made boat trips and land tours, and runs a private motor yacht across to Mykonos, so the sea is reached by arrangement from a house that sits well above it.