Europe > Greece > Cyclades (south) > Naxos > Fishing > Articles > Paxos

So what fish you want tonight? asks Mihalis Dalietos.

It is early morning on the Greek island of Paxos and a bearded Dalietos has just returned from the harbour with a carrier bag bulging with fish. His blue eyes gleam with delight at what he has brought home.

"Today I have scorpion fish, red mullet, bream, snapper, and a beautiful kingfish I will serve as, how you say, cutter-lets. Come. I show you."

Unlocking the door of his restaurant, La Rosa di Paxos, he leads me into a spotless kitchen tucked behind the bar. It is here that his Italian wife, Cinzia, who trained as an artist in Florence and whose extravagant and colourful ceramics decorate the bare white walls, now cooks the kind of food you never expected to find on a Greek island.

For La Rosa di Paxos is as different from the traditional Greek taverna as a lobster from a lamb stew. You don't smash plates here, as you would in a bazoukia restaurant, and with an Italian in the kitchen you're more likely to find risotto di mare or penne arrigato on the menu than the more traditional moussaka or souvlaki. After only a week on the island, their restaurant has become my firm favourite.

From the tiny stone-tiled bar you step out onto an even tinier terrace overlooking a corner of the harbour of Lakka, one of the island's three ports. There are only eight tables on the terrace, each of them marble-topped, set with canvas-backed film director's chairs and protected from the sun by giant umbrellas that Sir Terence Conran would die for.

In the kitchen Dalietos lays out the catch with a kind of awed reverence, as though uncovering some long-lost treasure. A single red snapper with thick, tubular lips, a pair of ugly-looking scorpion fish, a half-dozen pink-scaled mullet, the more streamlined grey bream and finally the kingfish, like an overgrown mackerel with a long pointed snout. Expertly he tests the firmness of each between thumb and forefinger.

We decide on a scorpion fish, a rich ruby red, its spiky fins laid harmlessly by its side, its wide round eye staring up at us dolefully.

"I shall ask Cinzia to grill it for you," says Dalietos, "with just a squeeze of lemon, maybe some oregano from our garden. Plain, nothing else, the flesh is so sweet you must not spoil it." We agree a time for dinner and he scribbles down the reservation. With so few tables, La Rosa di Paxos fills quickly.

Which is more than can be said for the rest of the island. One of the smallest of the Greek Ionian Islands and still relatively unknown, Paxos has remained resolutely under-developed. Too small and hilly for an airport, with limited supplies of fresh water, and land prices four times higher than neighbouring Corfu, the island has been left virtually untouched. Add to this a two-hour ferry trip from Corfu harbour to Paxos' main port of Gaios and you have enough to dissuade any serious tourist investment. There is but one hotel on the island and only a handful of private villas and apartments for rent. Apart from day-trippers from Corfu, the various yachting flotillas that use the island's three tiny harbours for overnight moorings, and the crowd of mid-summer Italians who come across from Brindisi, Paxos is a haven of peace and quiet.

Which suits the islanders just fine for their major source of income derives not from visitors but from the terraced olive groves that cover the island like a thick, silvery-green pelt.

Introduced by the Venetians in the sixteenth century (they offered the native Paxiots the equivalent of five drachmas for every olive tree they planted) the olive groves of Paxos produce some of the best olive oil in Greece. A single tree can grow as high as fifty feet, date back more than a thousand years and, if well-tended, will produce up to twenty kilos of oil a year. And on Paxos there are an estimated 300,000 trees and two annual harvests. Wherever you go on the island you will see piles of black netting beside each tree which the islanders string up to catch the olives, and in almost every garden, the ancient stone presses still used to crush them.

With few roads, limited car-hire facilities (they have to be ferried in from Corfu), and with only one garage which frequently runs out of petrol, one of the most reliable and rewarding ways of getting round this friendly, unexploited island is on foot. On Paxos any path or track is usually worth following, and since the island is no more than nine kilometres long and three kilometres wide, there is little chance of getting lost. Simply pack a picnic hamper and head off through the olive and cypress groves for tiny inland settlements like Klonatika, Fontana and Anemogianatika which has twice as many letters in its name as houses!

The island's coastline also offers fine walks, beach-hopping along the east coast between the three ports of Gaios, Loggos and Lakka, or climbing up the steeper slopes of the west coast to watch the waves crash against the sheer limestone cliffs hundreds of feet below.

As well as a good supply of bottled water, you should also take binoculars. Paxos is an increasingly popular destination amongst bird-watchers. Golden orioles, buntings, hawks and rock doves are common on the island, as is the Scops Owl whose soft and penetrating pew-pew call drifts hauntingly through the olive groves as soon as the sun begins to set. But keep your wits about you and your binoculars close at hand, for none of these birds is as accommodating as our own home-grown varieties. Shooting is a popular pastime on Paxos and anything that flies is considered fair game. Pathways are often littered with shell cases and the birds know not to tarry too long, flashing through the trees like feathery bullets.

Probably the most popular way of getting about is by boat. You can rent one from any of the island's three harbours for about £10 a day and make your own way down the east coast, stopping off at deserted beaches and hidden coves some no larger than a tablecloth. As for the wilder west coast, with its soaring cliffs and treacherous seas, harbour regulations forbid tourists from taking these small craft there. Instead you must hire something larger, like Captain Costa's sailing caique, Stamatia, to make the journey, visiting the cathedral-like caves and topaz-watered grottoes where Greek resistance fighters hid from German patrols during the Second World War.

Usually these trips include passage to neighbouring Anti-Paxos, across the mile-wide channel that separates the two islands. Just over two square miles in size and with a resident population of less than a hundred, Anti-Paxos really is a get-away-from-it-all destination. It also has some of the best beaches in Greece, with indigo depths and aquamarine shallows. While most people are happy to spend the day on beaches like Vrika and Voutoumi, the more adventurous climb the hills to walk amongst Anti-Paxos' walled gardens and vineyards which produce a local wine that is jealously guarded by the islanders and rarely available for sale.

It is this same wine that Mihalis Dalietos serves with my scorpion fish. It is my last night on the island and he means to make it memorable. In the bar of La Rosa, already crowded, he greets me with a tumbler of ouzu and a plate of grilled octopus and listens with interest as I tell him of the church I visited that day - one of 63 on the island - perched on the cliffs high above Erimitis and how I stayed there to watch a spectacular sunset.

Finally it's time to eat and he shows me to my table on the terrace, returning moments later with the scorpion fish we selected that morning. Its griddled red skin is blistered from the coals, and its white meat as sweet and succulent as Mihalis had promised. And then, with a flourish, he produces the label-less bottle of wine from his family vineyard on Anti-Paxos. His own special reserve, he tells me. It is a surprisingly strong white wine that leaves me pleasantly light-headed and as I stumble home, watching the fireflies flashing out their invitation from the darkened olive groves, I'm already making plans for a return visit to this enchanting island.

Articles

• More from Martin O'Brien
• More on the same theme