The Venetian Well lays its tables around the historical Venetian well that gives it its name, on Kremasti Square, Corfu Old Town. The door is at L. Dessyla 1, on the square.
It is open all year, Monday to Saturday, dinner only, from 6.30pm to 11.30pm, with Sunday closed.
The kitchen changed hands for the 2026 season. Spyros Agiou, whose modern Greek cooking reread Corfiot dishes, left, and Kostas Koufalis took the kitchen in partnership with the restaurant’s owner, Yiannis Vlachos. The appointment was reported on the island in December 2025, and for Koufalis, who was born on Corfu, it was a return to the island after a career in Athens and abroad.
The room
In summer the tables go out on the square, in front of the well, and the dining room is the open air. In winter the service moves indoors.
The kitchen
Koufalis began in 2011 at Tomata, the restaurant at Sani Resort. He then joined Spondi in Athens and stayed ten years, working up through the kitchen to head chef, and after that cooked at The Fat Duck.
The tasting menu is Komisa, with Greek wines by the course, five of them named against its dishes. The house calls the menu a patchwork of fine ingredients and of ideas both classic and contemporary, with the memory and the feeling behind each dish. Beside it there are a la carte and vegetarian menus, and the kitchen writes a separate one for Easter Saturday.
Spaghetti with kimchi, tomato and red shrimps opens the Komisa, against a Vidiano Brut from Douloufakis Estate in Crete. A courgette flower filled with grouper mousse follows, with kumquat and a spring broth, poured with Santorini Assyrtiko from Santo Wines. Grouper comes with asparagus, bergamot, an orange beurre blanc and vadouvan, and the glass beside it is Kechris Winery’s Tear of the Pine, from Macedonia. Then blue lobster with aubergine, mango, peanuts and spices, which carries no wine of its own. Duck with cherries, radish and aged whiskey takes a Limniona from Domaine Zafeirakis in Thessaly. The last note is raspberry, coffee, Pedro Ximénez and mascarpone, with a naturally sweet Malagouzia from Gerovassiliou Estate. Bread is homemade, with sheep’s butter and olive oil.
Under desserts the menu lists wild strawberry with yoghurt, white chocolate and rhubarb, and a 72 per cent Araguani chocolate with passion fruit, pecan nuts and tonka beans.
The cellar
The wine list runs to about a thousand labels, and a sommelier serves it. It opens on the wines by the glass, then the champagne pages, which reach back to a 1990 Krug Collection, then the sparkling wines, then a sommelier’s selection of its own, then a page of biological, low-intervention and orange wines. The Greek pages come after them, set out by region, and Corfu leads them with four island whites, three of them worked from Kakotrigis: Pontiglio Winery’s 2022, Nicoluzo Estate’s 2021 and Grammenos Winery’s old-vine Maestro, which blends Kakotrigis with Malvasia Aromatica. The Pontiglio Kakotrigis is one of the wines by the glass as well. Santorini takes the longest run of the Greek whites.
The house has used the cellar as the subject of its own dinners. In May 2025 it staged a Tour de France, a dinner that paired châteaux drawn from its own racks across the major French regions. It ran on Friday 9 May at 8.30pm, with Koufalis leading it.
Who is this for
This suits a reader staying inside the Old Town walls, and anyone who chooses the glass before the plate. Indoors the room is small and close, its decoration worked in with the age of the building, and the tables are laid with elegance around the old stonework. It is a place for an unhurried evening of several courses rather than one plate, and a reader who likes to be led can take the tasting menu and let the pairings decide the order of the food.
