La Bouillabaisse is the fine-dining room of Minos Beach Art Hotel, Agios Nikolaos, Lasithi, Crete, and it sits at the water’s edge. Service is dinner only, daily 19.00 to 23.30. The hotel around it has been open for more than 60 years, and the G. and A. Mamidakis Foundation collection of more than 55 works is spread around the grounds and the hotel’s own sculpture garden.
Stathis Pantermarakis leads the kitchen. The premise is narrow and literal: Mediterranean, farm-to-table, Cretan produce, with the growers printed at the front of the menu, village by village. Cretan ingredients lead every plate, worked with contemporary technique and borrowings from further afield.
Where the food comes from
The extra virgin olive oil in every recipe is the group’s own, from its olive grove at Anoskeli in Rethymno. Bio vegetables and fresh herbs come from Karalakis farm at Ierapetra, potatoes from the Lasithi Plateau, and the fish is received daily from local suppliers. Bread is split between two villages: eftazymo from Kroustas, dakos bread from the Vardas bakery at Kritsa. Cheese comes from three dairies, Steiakakis at Messara, Sylligardos at Neapolis and Zervos at Rethimnon, and the yoghurt from Sylligardos as well, which the chef calls the best in the world. Honey is pine and thyme from the area of Prina. Olives come from small producers of Kalamata and Crete, and the flour from the Mills of Crete, at Chania.
What the card names
Wild fennel bouillabaisse, 28 euro, is the dish the room is named for, and it is built on the fish of the day with tomato and fennel oil. The starters read the same way: amberjack crudo with grapes, ginger and verjuice at 27 euro, sea bass tartare with basil, dill and fennel at 28, grilled octopus with orange, caramelised onion and a stifado sauce at 28, and a grilled scallop with citrus, salsify and basil at 31. The plated main courses run 25 to 52 euro, from charred leeks with a yeast sauce and chanterelles at the lower end to a beef fillet with truffle, forest mushrooms and goat cheese at the top. Between them sit duck pappardelle with white truffle at 34, snapper in a Corfiot bourdetto with celeriac and pine nuts at 32, lamb picanha with aubergine and confit garlic at 39, and a cod plate at 36 that takes caviar, white chocolate, asparagus and lime. Lobster risotto is the exception to the range, priced by weight at 17 euro per 100 grams. Wine is a sommelier pairing from Crete and beyond.
The nights the kitchen was handed over
The room keeps a calendar of one-night-only dinners, and in 2026 it gave the kitchen over to three European guest chefs: Sven Elverfeld, Pierrot Ayer, Alain Llorca. Elverfeld, who cooks at Aqua in Wolfsburg, took 11 June 2026. Ayer, of Le Pérolles in Fribourg, cooked from 22 to 24 August 2026, and Llorca, of La Colle-sur-Loup near Cannes, from 23 to 25 September 2026. Each set menu was written in collaboration with the visiting chef and the resident team, Poppy Kourkoutaki and Stathis Pantermarakis.
Elverfeld’s own professional record places him at this hotel for the summer seasons of 1992 and 1995, early in a career that later took him to Wolfsburg.
Who is this for
Two people with a whole evening to spend at one table, and anyone staying along this stretch of coast or driving in for the night. The restaurant belongs to a resort of bungalows and villas set in gardens along 2 kilometres of shoreline, with two secluded sandy beaches of its own. The tables stand on the shore, so dinner starts with the sun going down over the bay and goes on once the moon is up. The evening is calm and outdoors, with water in front and gardens behind.
