The Cyclades

The oldest taverna in Firostefani, same family — the Roussos clan — since 1922, four generations in. It predates the island's whole tourist era: this was where farmers and miners stopped for wine on the walk home. Cliffside, so there's a caldera view, but the view isn't the point; the food is. Fava, capers and good oil, tomatokeftedes, a moussaka people come back for. Honest and well-priced on an island that's neither. Book — the handful of outside tables go first.

No reservations, no electricity, no signage from the road — walk down the dirt path from the small parking cove above Agios Sostis. One person with a wood-fired grill: whole grilled fish, a long salad of bitter greens with lemon, bread, as much chilled white as the table can finish. The most-photographed lunch on Mykonos and the only one where the photo isn't lying; queue is an hour by 1 p.m. in season.

The destination kitchen in the port of Naoussa. Mario took the room over from Argyro Barbarigou in 2004 and built something more ambitious than the harbour around it — creative Greek cooking with chef Nico Gumblia, vegetables from his own garden, cheese and meat from Naxos. Not a fish-by-the-kilo taverna; a real restaurant with a point of view, on the prettiest stretch of the old port. Book, and ask for a table on the water side.

A seaside seafood restaurant at Xifara, 3 km east of Naoussa on the road to Santa Maria — the Karamitsos siblings since 2009, tables set at the water with the sun going down behind them. Refined Cycladic cooking off the day's catch: salt-crusted whole fish filleted at the table, crudo and tartare, grilled octopus, the oysters to start. The sunset dinner most worth booking on Paros; open April–October, lunch through late.

The family taverna in Adamas with lambs in the field out back, fish from a cousin's boat, vegetables from the garden — the waiter walks you to the back to choose the fish, the lamb is whatever cut is on. Order the skioufihta (Milos hand-rolled pasta) with goat ragù — the dish most travellers don't know to ask for. Half the tables are Milos locals; book in August.

Often signposted "O! Hamos!" — same place. Don't worry about it.

A courtyard restaurant in the back of Folegandros Chora — three family generations, every herb visible from your table. The signature is matsata (hand-rolled Folegandros pasta with slow-cooked rooster in red sauce — nobody else cooks it the same way); the fava is the warm Cycladic standard. The courtyard is the table, the inside dining room is the consolation; reserve a week ahead in August.

A serious wine taverna on a quiet Naoussa lane — the island's most ambitious wine list, and the kitchen to match. Order the boneless lamb wrapped in vine leaves and stuffed with carrots and Naxos cheese, slow-cooked in the wood oven with potatoes; ask the sommelier for an Assyrtiko from Santorini, a Mantilaria from Crete, or whichever small-batch Paros white is on this week. Book ahead in August.

A fishing-family ouzeri on the harbour in Piso Livadi, the east-coast Paros village most travellers don't drive over to — the owner has his own boat, which is the difference. Whole fish, shrimp saganaki, stuffed sardines, sea-urchin spaghetti in season, for roughly half what you'd pay in Naoussa. Worth the 30-minute drive (longer if you stop at Marpissa village on the way back); reserve in summer.

Eleni Theodorou's wine-shop-turned-taverna in an 1812 Tinos Town stone building — two arched rooms with dried peppers and copper pots from the ceiling, cooking country-Tinian: stuffed cabbage leaves, rabbit stew, the Tinos omelette with louza (local cured pork) and Tinian sausage. The historic tripe soup or the fish soup are the emblematic dishes — order one. Locals fill the room from Sunday afternoon.

A small owner-cooked meze room in medieval Ano Syros (Syros's prettiest quarter) — small plates of gruyere with their own tomato chutney, fresh cheese pies, Greek pasta with whatever herb is in the back garden. The jam shop next door is the same family. Sit outside on the stepped lane; on the way down from a sundown walk in Ano Syros, this is dinner.

The Greek street-food benchmark on the main stepped lane of Ano Syros — lamb and beef from the local butcher, charcoal grill, pita wrapped while you wait, €4–6 a meal. Order one of each (lamb gyros + pork souvlaki) with a cold beer; eat on the stone step outside. Open late, busy on weekends with locals; walk it off back down to Ermoupoli.

The Parikia waterfront grill house — counter service, twenty seats outside, the 1 p.m. queue of locals as the credential. Meat grilled in front of you, pita wrapped warm with the right ratio of tzatziki to lemon to tomato, the bill to €5. The most-considered cheap lunch on Paros.

The modern-Greek institution of Santorini — founded by Giorgos Hatzigiannakis in 1986, the kitchen that first argued the island's volcanic produce belonged in fine dining. Now set in a restored 18th-century monastery in Fira, under Michelin-starred chef Ettore Botrini, in what's arguably its best phase yet. Fava in three textures, sun-dried tomatoes, capers, all anchored in ingredients most travelers don't know are Santorinian. The wine list is the island's most serious on Assyrtiko. The reason to leave the caldera for dinner; book well ahead in summer.

The small Chora dining room that proves there's a serious kitchen behind the Mykonos beach-club hierarchy — chef Pavlos Grivas in an open kitchen on a quiet back street, creative Mediterranean with technique and restraint. Seared tuna with eggplant mousse, rack of lamb with cumin fava, octopus carpaccio with pink peppercorn; the chocolate nirvana for the table. Ask the sommelier for a natural Mantilaria off the Cycladic-heavy list. Reserve two weeks out in August.

An organic farm-to-table taverna in a courtyard near Kastraki, 25 minutes south of Naxos Town — the Karavias family, sons cooking, parents farming, a lot of it walking in from their own garden (Naxos is the rare Cycladic island with real agriculture, and Axiotissa is the proof). Short, changing menu under a fig tree, paired with the family's own wines. À la carte, not a set tasting — order the daily specials and the wild rabbit. Drive over, eat at 2, swim at Kastraki after. Reserve in season.

A tiny back-alley restaurant in Naoussa — chef-owner Kalypso ("Soso") at fourteen seats under a vine arbour, husband Petros runs the front — the room is his. Fusion Greek with global ingredients and restraint: oven-roasted lamb shank in lemon sauce, pork fillet in mustard, careful portions. One of the most-considered small kitchens on Paros and consistently underrated by the foreign press; reserve a week ahead in August.

The most-considered restaurant on Tinos — chef-owner Antonia Zarpa's platform of tables set a metre from the Aegean in the quiet north-coast bay of Ormos Isternion (speedboats come over from Mykonos for lunch; that's the reputation). The seafood is the headline but the Tinian vegetable dishes are the surprise — wild artichokes, fava with capers, courgette flowers stuffed with myzithra. Reserve the water-edge table (you'll get splashed; part of the experience) and order the pairing menu.

A brother-and-sister kitchen — Antonis and Stamatoula Psaltis — in a courtyard by the old port of Chora, on the site of the island's former open-air cinema. Farm-to-table Tinian: local cheeses, charcuterie, tiny chickpeas, Aegean fish, handmade pasta, the produce changing with what comes in. The wine list is one of the most serious in the Cyclades — all 21 Tinian labels and deep on the rest of Greece. Antonis is one of the people behind the Tinos Food Paths movement, which tells you the seriousness. Reserve.

An aperitivo in the candy-coloured fishermen's village of Klima on Milos — twenty old syrmata (boat-garages) painted in primary colours, water up to their doors, a small dining room set up in front. Order a glass at 6 p.m., watch the sun go down behind the western cape, stay for the lobster pasta if you have it in you. Not many sundown places left in the Cyclades where you feel like you're in on a small thing — this is one.

The terrace bar at the top of Plaka (Milos's medieval hilltop town and original capital) — a black-and-white checkered cliff-edge perch with the full panoramic west view, the Aegean and surrounding islands in front and the village quiet at your back. The Mai Tai is the house pick; jazz on speakers; sunset show starts 7:45 in high summer (arrive 6 p.m. for a front-row table). The most-considered sundown spot on Milos; open in summer only.