The Taverna is the beachfront building of the Koufonisia Hotel & Resort masterplan, and it will stand on 4,011.74 m² on the beach at Ammouda, Ano Koufonisi. The plan makes it the gastronomy and leisure point of the resort. None of it is built: the applications have cleared the culture ministry and the archaeological services, and the masterplan is in its first phase, which covers the landscaping and the infrastructure.
Above the restaurant go the suites, and how many there will be is not yet settled. BC estudio group, which holds the architecture, the interiors and the landscape, puts the count at 16, each with a private pool and each with direct access to the beach. Intradevelopment, which manages the development and the permitting for the owner, describes the same site as 4,000 square metres with 21 suites. The unit is expected to hold 63 beds.
Below the suites sits a restaurant-bar with terrace and rooftop, open to the sea. The same building carries a minimarket and boutiques selling local products, and a basement under all of it takes the parking and the storage, which keeps the resort’s logistics off the surface.
One masterplan, three buildings
The Taverna is one component of 26,303.05 m². The second is the existing hotel at Agios Georgios, which is a different place on the island: it is being renovated and extended, taking its capacity from 56 rooms to 79, and the architect’s plan adds 20 suites with private terraces and pools. The third is the Village, 16 villas across eight plots on 7,244.42 m², built for sale. The timetable is phased from 2027, complete 2028.
How it is built for the heat
The design follows Passivhaus and bioclimatic principles. Thermal comfort is to come from local materials and passive cooling strategies. The planting follows the same logic, drought-tolerant Mediterranean species: olive and carob trees, cypresses, lavenders, agaves and succulents.
The hands on it
The architecture, the interiors and the landscape are BC estudio group, Barcelona. The developer manager is Intradevelopment, for Koufonisia Hotel & Resort, which is the owner entity: it holds the 56-room hotel and land inside the settlement, and the plan adds the second house on a privately owned coastal plot along with villas for sale.
The owner, and the hotel already trading
The project is the Kokkalis group’s. It came to Koufonisia in 2023 with a majority stake in Afoi Simou AE, the company that held the old hotel. The whole Koufonisia development was put at around 35 million euros in October 2025, and the estimate runs above 20 million euros for this house alone.
The old hotel is back on the market as Olvos Koufonisia, held on a lease by SWOT Hospitality and 90 metres from the beach. The operator took the name Olvos from abundance, and points to Keros, an island nearby that it calls one of the world’s earliest maritime havens.
The ground it goes on
The 2021 census records 391 permanent residents in the municipal community of Koufonisia. Sixteen suites, a restaurant, a minimarket and boutiques, set inside the settlement of Ano Koufonisi, is a considerable addition at that scale. The site at Ammouda is a different place from the trading hotel at Agios Georgios, and the two will run as separate buildings under one masterplan.
Who is this for
The Taverna will suit a traveller who wants a Cycladic village around them and clear, shallow water a few steps off the sand. Everything for the day sits in one low building by the shore, which makes it an easy place to do very little. The mood is small and quiet, lanes and whitewash at the door, the open Aegean beyond. Expect a place still being finished around you, since the masterplan arrives in stages.
