The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Travel
This hotel is something to crow about
The Rooster, on the Greek island of Antiparos, is a model of sustainable luxury, says Mary Lussiana
It was faint to begin with, but discernible in the still dawn air, from far across an arid, almost biblical, landscape of parched browns scattered with olive trees. But the second time I heard it, I was sure, and I laughed at the perfect appropriateness of being greeted by a rooster’s crowing on the very first morning of my stay at the eponymous hotel.
It may have been the same one that founder and owner Athanasia Comninos heard time and again from her house nearby as she worked on the hotel project, for there is only a scattering of dwellings on this land that runs down to the sea. For her it became more than a wake-up call marking the dawn of another day. It was a call to action to fulfil her dream of creating a hotel and, within it, to weave colours of brown and green, terracotta and turmeric to “wake up the eye”.
And the Rooster does just that, in a nuanced, understated way. It seeps under the skin with a raw, unfiltered, authentic beauty, using a patchwork of colours and textures that still the mind and echo the nature that enfolds it. The 16 houses (and one farmhouse a mile or so away) are built from the rough, mellow stone that comes from Antiparos. There is a central hub on the crown of the hill (“our parthenon,” the staff joke) comprising the reception area, a restaurant, inside and out, and the bar. All the buildings are flatroofed, much like a North African village, so that from the houses beneath, as you look up at the buildings on top, they could almost be ruins.
Some rooms are open to the elements, others covered with sturdy wooden sticks allowing patches of sunlight to dapple the stone floors, creating a chiaroscuro effect. To the unpainted wood and rough stone, unpolished marble from Tinos Island has been added – inset in stone as scullery basins in the bar area of each room, or as an impressive, tactile sweep of a desk at reception.
Houses have either one or two bedrooms, all with their own swimming pool and a tiny private patio featuring an outside shower, in addition to an alfresco dining area; gravelled underfoot, green tendrils wrapping around the wooden struts that form the roof overhead. Bathrooms are spacious; bedrooms embrace the silence, with Bluetooth sound systems for those who cannot. Coat hangers are made of bamboo, slippers of rough cotton and water bottles of glass. Borders of lavender and wild grasses enclose each house. This is the sustainability-driven hotel Athanasia wanted to create; to pay homage in stone to an island she loves.
Antiparos lies within the Cyclades Islands, but it is the very opposite of party island Mykonos or tourist-filled Santorini. The residents here total no more than a thousand and most live from the influx in summer of Greek and international tourists who fill, but do not overwhelm, the island. There may be Hollywood stars with summer houses here but there have never been paparazzi.
It was in wanting to preserve this ethos that Athanasia decided against making a beach club on the sands of Livadia Bay, which the hotel overlooks. Already aware that the Rooster was breaking new ground on the island as its first luxury hotel, Athanasia was scrupulous about trying to ensure
Blue sea thinking: Antiparos is just a short ferry trip from busier Paros through choices such as this that it would attract like-minded visionaries who would value and preserve the peaceful character of Antiparos.
“Greece doesn’t know how to do understated luxury,” she told me as we chatted over my signature Sin Nobre cocktail (vodka, mastic liqueur, pink pepper and mint). But that is what she wants to change.
For now this means tempting visitors to do the seven-minute ferry hop from neighbouring Paros, where the nearest airport is located. In future, the Rooster will hopefully be the place to stay for those who want to visit the impressive Sanctuary of Apollo on the uninhabited neighbouring island of Despotiko, where excavations are still ongoing.
It may have been seven years in the making, but the opening of the Rooster chimes perfectly with the new, more meaningful type of travel we are all looking for in 2021, with its emphasis on privacy, health and family time. There is no communal pool here, each house having its own, but there is a gym and a holistic spa for body and mind. It is otd the therapists there, from Ayurvedictrained Abi from Kerala to talented Frederiki, do just that with Ila products and magical hands.
And then of course there is the food. Chef Andreas Nikolakopoulos did his time in London (Corbin & King, Tom Aikens) but is revelling in being back in his homeland with a vision that pairs perfectly with Athanasia’s. Much of his menu, which he classifies as Aegean cuisine with a modern twist, is sourced from the garden at the property’s three-bedroom farmhouse, where chickens (and baby roosters) can be found along with beetroot and Greek basil, aubergines and lines of courgettes, their flowers used in a risotto with pine nuts and rosemary noisette.
“I am the sous-chef here,” Andreas told me. “The head chef is nature, and she decides what I cook.” When asked what ingredient to him summed up the Rooster, he said lavender. There is a yogurt mousse with lavender, pineapple and chilli on the menu, but the starter of xinomizithra – local cheese with lavender, honey and toasted coriander seeds – is a dish whose flavours you will really take home with you.
Athanasia told me that her name means eternal life in Greek, the impossibility of that concept making the name a source of constant irritation to her. But while eternal life might not be hers to enjoy, she has certainly provided a legacy that will endure.
Rooms at the Rooster cost from €580/ £495 (theroosterantiparos.reserveonline.net/about). Original Travel (020 3582 4990; originaltravel.co.uk) is offering seven nights at the Rooster from £3,705 per person including breakfast plus return flights and transfers, based on two people sharing.