Peter Schimke
Google
I was so tempted to give one star, but this place deserves to do better, so I’ll give them a chance. I’ll start off with the good. Gorgeous space, cleverly curated moments throughout the expansive garden, clearly aimed at the instagram world. It nails this with alacrity and is beautiful. The sunset views are arguably better at other spots like Ios Club and Alma, but this venue is more laid back, less crowded and relaxingly natural, encouraging diners to create their own journey through the spaces.
The menu is finely curated (read: small), which is never a problem. Rather than doing lots of average food and drinks, doing a few items very well is a great idea… if you can pull it off. Which Garden of Ios seems unable to do.
Now for the bad. We ordered a bottle of orange wine. The waiter came back to say it wasn’t available. We then ordered a bottle of rosé, the waiter sheepishly came back and informed us that was also not available. We then looked at some light snacks to start while waiting for a friend to join us and of the five starters, the one we wanted was not available. One of our party was allergic to beetroot, leaving 3 out of 5 starters available. We instead ordered some cocktails. Mine was to have bourbon in (a notably smokey spirit) and a stick of celery. My drink arrived with no celery and no flavour of bourbon. I asked the waiter if they had sent the wrong cocktail, as two of the four ingredients appeared to be missing. He confirmed they had no celery, but that it did contain bourbon. I declined the cocktail (which he graciously removed from our bill) and ordered a gin and tonic which came in a 30ml shot with no garnish, which in Greece is a little parsimonious, but was stated as such on the menu, so that’s fair. But perhaps ask the guest if they would like a single or a double.
We then checked if any of the five non-vegetarian mains were missing, and with the look of a surgeon admitting he had amputated the wrong leg, the poor waiter confirmed that they did not in fact have the catch of the day. Again, to be fair, the menu does say it’s not always available - which for an island in the Aegean is odd, and for a menu with four meat dishes and one fish dish not ideal. It’s hard to rate the food above one star as little of it seemed to be available.
I will say this, my heart went out to the waiter who was as good as he could possibly be under the circumstances. But this place has a lot of competition for both views and food on an island awash with incredible dining experiences and views. It has the air of a place that opened a week ago - while in fact having been open for a year already. It’s unpolished and unfinished and not the fault of the staff, but clearly whomever does the stock ordering needs to get their act together. What had started as a plan to have a three-course dinner ended in us leaving after one drink each and a beautiful sunset we had almost expected to be told was off the menu.
