Mykonos for first-time visitors

Best restaurants

Mykonos eats well, but not always honestly. The harbour quarter is thick with menus printed in four languages and prices set for the cruise tender, and the easiest mistake a visitor can make is to sit down at the first table with a sea view. The twelve rooms below are the ones worth the walk: a Mexican counter on Mavrogeni street, a bistro that stays open through the afternoon, a beach kitchen at Ornos that runs until the small hours, a Greek-French hybrid in the old town. Some are in Chora, where the lanes are narrow enough that you will smell the kitchens before you find the door; others are out at Platis Gialos, Ornos, or Ano Mera, where the island still behaves like an island. None of them are secrets (they are mapped, listed, and answered by phone) but each one rewards the small effort of getting there over the larger effort of being seen on a terrace you will not remember. Read them as a working list: addresses, hours, and what the kitchen does. The rest is up to you and the wind.