Aristos is the formal dining room of Grecotel Corfu Imperial, the resort at the end of the Kommeno peninsula, Corfu, north of the town. The kitchen is fine French, and the room is the resort’s flagship table. It looks to the sea and to the gardens.
The season runs April to October, and the service is dinner only, 19.00 to 22.00 low season, 19.30 to 22.30 high season. Reservation required, so the table is taken before the evening starts.
The name and the island
The room carries the name of Aristotle Onassis, the Greek shipowner. Onassis bought the island of Skorpios in 1963, and Skorpios lies in the southern Ionian, off Lefkada. The name here is for the man, and for the Ionian of the 1960s, when the yachts of the period moved between St Tropez, Monaco, Portofino, Capri and Corfu. The resort’s gardens and its aristocratic interiors still read in that register.
The kitchen
The menu is French in spirit and carries a section of special meat cuts. The house presents Aristos as its most formal table, and rests that on the decor, the service and the length of the card. Vegan, vegetarian and gluten-free dishes are available, and the list holds vegan and organic wines as well.
What the 2019 card held
In the 2019 season the kitchen was under the chef Konstantinos Karapanagiotis, and the menu he set was contemporary French, classical in its main choices and personal in its detail. It opened with king crab in a gel of tomato water, with wild horseradish and an olive oil ice cream, and with langoustine with fennel, pickled rock samphire and a foam of langoustine sauce. Among the main courses were white grouper with cauliflower and a beurre blanc, and duck with carrot, spice and petimezi, the syrup of boiled grape must. Dessert was apple with Ivoire chocolate and a praline biscuit.
The rooms around it
Each of the resort’s other rooms and bars keeps its own hours, and most keep their own kitchen. Merlin’s Bar Restaurant cooks an Asian and Latin American fusion from May to October and takes guests of 12 and over. Yali Seafood stands over the water and serves fish and seafood from June to September, at lunch as well as at dinner, with views that reach Corfu Town. Trattoria & Wine Bar is the Italian room and keeps a children’s lunch service in low season. Mon Repos takes its name from the colonial estate outside Corfu Town and serves breakfast and dinner on an international and Mediterranean card. Alkinoos is the all-day bar, 09.00 to 23.30, with a snack lunch and an afternoon tea, and the Odysseus terrace pours cocktails to live music from 19.00 until midnight.
The peninsula
The resort holds the whole of the Kommeno peninsula and stands above its olive groves at the end of it. Greenery runs down to the water, the gardens are laid in the Italian manner, and the main building looks out with the Ionian in front of it. The Elixir spa, the beach bar and the gelateria are all on the same ground, so dinner at Aristos comes at the close of a day spent without leaving the headland.
Who is this for
Aristos suits a traveller who takes dinner as the event of the day, and who wants a long card and an unhurried room at the end of it. Much of the evening happens on foot: an aperitivo over the Ionian sunset, then a table with the sea below. It suits a guest who likes a kitchen that works in one tradition for a whole season, and anyone curious about what a French card does with a Greek summer.
