Santo Collection named Vaios Koukoumtzis executive chef of its three houses in Oia in June 2026 — one hand over every table the collection keeps on Santorini. He came to the post with more than 30 years in professional kitchens behind him, 20 of them inside the Metaxa Hospitality Group, the family house that owns the collection and has been in hospitality since 1975.
The chef
Koukoumtzis is from Karditsa, on the Thessalian plain, and took his diploma in culinary arts at the Alexander Technological Educational Institute of Thessaloniki. The years since have been spent almost entirely in resort kitchens, and in Crete above all: he held the executive chef’s post at Creta Maris Resort and at Candia Maris Resort & Spa, and senior posts at other houses of the same group on the island. He has travelled to study what other kitchens are doing and to refine his fine-dining technique, including a spell at the Celtic Manor Resort in Newport, Wales.
That lineage matters more than it might appear. He is not a name brought in for a season and photographed against the caldera. He has cooked inside this group for 20 years, and the Santorini kitchens are the newest address of a career built within one house.
His own account of the method is short. “Every ingredient has value,” he has said. “From the stems of herbs to the peels of vegetables, our goal is always to honour each element with creativity and respect for the land that offers it.”
The kitchens
The collection is three houses, all of them in Oia: Santo Pure Oia Suites & Villas, Santo Mine Oia Suites, and The Villas by Santo Collection. All three opened for the 2026 season in April, and the tables Koukoumtzis now oversees opened with them.
At Santo Pure the room is Alios Ilios Restaurant & Bar, an all-day table run by head chef Giorgos Zalokostas. At Santo Mine it is Ālme, under head chef Dimitris Choustoulakis, which takes its name from the Greek άλμη — brine — and cooks accordingly: the catch of the day, Aegean recipes, the sea in the seasoning rather than in the view alone. It serves from 12:30 until 22:30, with last orders at 22:00. Beside it sit Rhoē Wine Bar & More and a wine cellar.
Two head chefs, three houses, one executive chef above them. The structure is the news.
What is on the plate
The 2026 menus read Greek and read local. At Alios Ilios, tomato fritters with a Greek cheese mousse and fresh herbs; at Ālme, grilled octopus over a purée of Santorini fava. Neither dish is an invention — both are island staples — and that is rather the point of them.
Beneath the menus is a supply chain the collection has built rather than bought. Its kitchens draw on organic gardens the houses farm themselves, and on producers in Santorini, across the Cyclades and in Crete. Food waste is composted. Dried fruit left over at Alios Ilios and Ālme is turned into biscuits. It is a farm-to-table claim with the working parts shown, which is rarer than the phrase.
What it changes
A caldera view has long been able to carry a kitchen in Oia. What has changed at Santo Collection is not the view but the chain of command: a chef of 30 years’ standing, 20 of them in this group, now answers for every table the collection keeps, from the April opening to the close of the season.
For a guest who takes a villa above the caldera for a week and eats where they sleep more often than not, that is the difference between a hotel restaurant and a kitchen. It shows in September as surely as in May.
The house makes the introduction, for those who ask.
