Laid-back luxe at The Rooster, Antiparos

Thanasis, owner of a small bar on the main shopping street on the island of Antiparos, looks disconsolately into his glass of ouzo as we talk about the subject everyone in the world is talking about, and its effect on tourist numbers. The bar is called The Doors, which you would guess from the number of portraits in the bar, some more accomplished than others, of the Californian group’s lead singer, Jim Morrison. 

He says he is cautiously optimistic about the season. “But if we have another year like last year, we are all . . .”, and he uses a word that got the famously profane Morrison into a whole lifetime of trouble with the authorities, all those years ago. Normally, even in the early days of June, says Thanasis, The Doors would be making its nocturnal presence felt among the whitewashed streets, as young holiday-makers try to set their nights on fire. On this softly warm evening, decorum is the watchword among the island’s few, circumspect guests.

Not that Antiparos has any kind of reputation for the kind of Dionysian revelry for which its more famous neighbouring Cycladic islands are known. There is history among these austere, scattered rocks — ancient history, of course — but the islands’ personalities have been equally shaped by their introduction to the world of mass tourism over the past 50 years, and their subsequent marketing-friendly categorisation.

There is the spectacular one, Santorini, and the ostentatiously moneyed one, Mykonos. (Both are disdained, despite their startling topographies, by aficionados who like to catch the odd hour of relaxation while travelling.) Syros is elegant, as befits the administrative centre of the group, Milos looks moony, Ios still retains something of its hippy vibe.

Then there are Naxos and Paros, among the largest of the Cyclades, historically important for the very fine quality of their marble, from which many of the most famous of ancient Greek statues were sculpted: the Venus de Milo, the Nike of Samothrace. The islands are understandably similar, yet discerning travellers have found fundamental differences, few more fancifully expressed than by Lawrence Durrell in his 1978 book The Greek Islands.

“Naxos is a bit of a slut, while Paros is all gold and white like her once famous marbles,” he wrote. “If Naxos is a vivid parrot, then Paros is a white dove. You wake earlier in Naxos, but you sleep deeper in Paros.” That particular book makes no description of Antiparos, but it would be no surprise if Durrell had spent a few peaceful nights there, and just decided to keep it all to himself.

A seven-minute, €1.20 ride by ferry from its big sister, Antiparos is a place of discreet charms, studiously unflashy, its welcome gentle. Its attractions include a cave network fronted by a huge stalagmite claimed to be 45m years old, the oldest in Europe, and a popular nudist beach near the main camping site. But lovers of the island point to something less tangible: a humble, soothing feel, which brings them back on a regular basis.

The actor Tom Hanks, married to a half-Greek and recently granted Greek citizenship, spends his summers here in a strikingly low-profile villa, and there are blink-and-you-miss-them events on the calendar that attract cultish interest, such as the international photography festival in July (“the smallest in the world” is its proud claim), which places its exhibits on the walls of the 15th century castle.

The Greek director Argyris Papadimitropoulos chose Antiparos as the location of his critically acclaimed movie Suntan (2016), a sharply observed fable on the pointlessness, once one reaches a certain age, of chasing the hedonic excesses of youth. The island serves as the perfect backdrop for the film’s castigation of delusional middle-aged manhood. When there is beauty like this all around you, do you really need to party? 

If Naxos is a vivid parrot, then Paros is a white dove. You wake earlier in Naxos, but you sleep deeper in Paros

It is this air of understated tranquillity that first attracted Athanasia Comninos to the island a decade ago, during what she describes as a “decisive moment” in her life, and planting the idea in her head to open some form of guesthouse or hotel on the island. She says she used to holiday in Mykonos and found the contrast striking when she arrived on Antiparos. “It was so chilled. The energy of Mykonos is so strong. There is a lot of energy here, too, but in a calm way. I felt safe, secure. It just clicked immediately.”

She left the family shipping company in order to work on the hotel project, the vision finally becoming a reality last month with the opening of The Rooster, a “wellness and lifestyle” resort that curls around a relatively isolated bay on the west of the island. The Rooster (the title came to Comninos during a sunset walk, its connotations of a wake-up call matching the change in direction in her own life) is an attempt to marry the facilities and comfort of a luxury hotel with a sense of the authenticity and simplicity that pervades throughout the island.

There are, for example, no television sets in the 16 villas dotted spaciously around the bay (although they can be requested). Parties and receptions are welcomed, but without loud music and “extravagant” dancing. There are no umbrellas or lounge chairs on the beach, nor any early morning combing of its fine sand. If you want an iced cappuccino, you have to pop back up to the bar or your room.

The path to the sea is pockmarked with simple stepping stones, and passes through a section of unmanicured shrubs. It is a kind of de-fetishisation of the typical Greek beach holiday or, as Comninos puts it: “We wanted to be seen as a hotel that just happens to be on a beach.”

For the hotel to be seen at all is not so easy. The villas are made out of local stone, its rust red and grey hues blending with the softly green landscape all around. If you swim out to sea and look back at the hotel, they are all but invisible, hidden from the world like camouflaged lookout huts poised for foreign invasion. This is a far cry from the stark blues and whites that characterise traditional Cycladic architecture; the harsh drama of those indelible landscapes is replaced here by something more subtle and harmonious.

It is like jazz — you love it or hate it. I love coriander, and I love jazz

The restaurant menu features traditional Greek ingredients — many of them grown in its own farm a few hundred metres down the road — given some refined twists. A starter of xinomizithra goats’ cheese is twinned with blood orange; catch-of-the-day fish tartare is garnished with cucumber, chilli and coriander, a herb not commonly used in Greek cuisine.

“It is regarded as too exotic,” says the restaurant’s charismatic executive chef, Andreas Nikolakopoulos. “It is like jazz — you love it or hate it. I love coriander, and I love jazz.” It’s impossible not to notice Thelonius Monk playing tastefully in the background.

Local sourcing is meticulous, and sometimes fortuitous: the super-salty samphire used in some dishes was found growing under the rocks of the beach during building work. Nikolakopoulos says he most looks forward to the calls, at all hours, from local fishermen. “We have some fantastic sea bream — do you want to come and see them?” they ask him. I compliment him on his “superfood” salad and he waves his hand expansively behind him, pointing to the fields: “They are all superfoods!”

As in most Cycladic islands, there is substantial archaeological interest in Antiparos. A short drive from The Rooster, you can see the outlines of a temple on the islet of Despotiko, opposite the south-west coast. From the beach of St Giorgio, you can negotiate a short boat trip across the channel to watch a live dig at work. (Make sure you find some time for lunch at Captain Pipinos taverna, for grilled fresh squid and octopus that is so sweet you would swear it had been marinated in honey).

The scientists here have found, and partially reconstructed, an Archaic temple dedicated to Apollo, dating from the 6th century BC, and are combing the surrounding land for further treasures. At present, there is no tourist infrastructure and, if you time your visit early in the morning, you can chat casually with some of the students from Greek and American universities, and find yourself totally alone, face-to-face, with the bright, white facade of the temple.

The only aberration in the remarkable view is an unprepossessing concrete hut built, a member of the team explained, for the shepherd who is the only inhabitant of the islet. It was his original home, propped up with pieces of fine marble, that alerted the archaeologists to the area’s potential for discoveries. At least, so the story goes.

I ask if he was annoyed to be moved from his home, and the team member replies: “Yes, and he will probably be annoyed again because they are finding many new things all around him. He will have to be moved again.” It’s more action than this sacred spot has seen for the best part of three millennia. Time may appear to stand still on Antiparos, but there is always something happening. Just don’t shout about it.

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