About 15 minutes walk from Elounda centre along a beautiful coastal road lies the Kanali Fish Tavern, a well thought of restaurant among locals, tourists and always seems to find itself among the top places to eat in Elounda.
The restaurant, well the dining area itself is a shack right next to the water making fantastic views while you dine. We started with a couple of cocktails, an aperitif spritz and a margarita both refreshing and reasonably priced at 8 euros each.
For dinner we chose the Kanali seafood platter which, we had seen online on various social media before we came. It was priced at 70 euros for two to share and comprised of 3 salads for starter and the platter for main. Bread soon arrived drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with very small olives which packed an extremely intense and tasty punch. The starter salads were potato salad, beetroot salad and a Greek salad, all simple but fantastic. This fish platter when it came was enormous, abundant with calamari, muscles, grilled prawns, fried sardines, a whole sea bream and the thickest grilled octopus tentacles I’ve ever seen. No other flavours were needed with the extremely fresh and beautifully cooked fish apart from a lemon butter sauce.
The waiter filleted the fish for us, an art form in itself delicately de-boning with just 2 dessert spoons. Every bit of the platter was absolutely delicious and cooked to perfection. Such a pleasure when fish is so fresh and good that all you have to do is cook it well to get amazing results.
I asked for a glass of house wine which to my surprise was absolutely fantastic, as most house wines are fine but don’t stand out like this one did. I have emailed the restaurant to find out what it was but haven’t received a response yet.
For dessert we shared a rich chocolate cake oozing with gooey goodness, and like the rest of the meal, extremely good. It is tradition in Crete to finish a meal with Raki (sometimes called Tsikoudia in other parts of the world), a grape based brandy style drink that for some is a little harsh but I really enjoyed it and it was a perfect way to end an excellent traditional Cretan dinner.
