There’s an unmatched elation that comes with dreaming up an idea, spending months planning it, and then watching it come to life in front of your eyes. That’s exactly how our first Ways of Feasting: Kastellorizo food and wine retreat felt.
To rewind: We’ve always let our stomachs lead when travelling. Food is not only one of life’s great pleasures, it’s also the best way into a culture. After years of planning food-filled holidays for friends and family, alongside running Noms du Jour, hosting our own food and wine retreats felt like the only logical next step. Ways of Feasting is our way of creating the sort of holidays we’d want to go on ourselves, bringing together local cooks, winemakers, bakers, fishers and farmers, along with a group of curious food lovers, to really get under the skin of a place.
For our May retreat on the Greek island of Kastellorizo, we were lucky enough to have the talented chef Sian Redgrave in the kitchen, whose generous, Mediterranean-inspired cooking is exactly the kind of food we could happily eat every day (and luckily for us, that’s exactly what we’re about to do).
As always, our trip begins with a stay at Marco Polo in Rhodes, a hotel and restaurant run by the formidable Effie, her husband Spiros and their son Savvy, who have become something of an extended Greek family. Along with Sian and our photographer, George Wood-Weber, we spend our two days there feasting, squeezing in a spot of last-minute shopping in Effie’s boutique and at the markets, before we board the ferry east.
Rounding the bend into Kastellorizo’s pastel-splashed harbour is nothing short of magic, and no matter how many times we make the crossing, that first glimpse of the colourful neoclassical houses tumbling down feels like
seeing it anew. This time, though, we’re arriving with a group of guests in tow, ready for five days of cooking, eating, exploring, seafaring, swimming, drinking, excellent Greek wine and sharing one of our favourite corners of Greece.
Ahead of our upcoming Ways of Feasting retreats in Kastellorizo and Sifnos, we reflect on the week that was…
Day one: the arrival
The day has finally arrived. Our guests all land on the same flight from Rhodes and are whisked down to Casa Mediterraneo by the island’s sole taxi driver, where a welcome drink awaits – a thirst-quenching, gazpacho-adjacent concoction I’d drink by the bucketful if I could – before settling around the table for our first meal together. The group has travelled from all over the world for the week ahead and, while they come from different walks of life, everyone is united by a love of good food. Sian’s gemista with hand-cut chips lands in the middle of the table. The wine and conversation flow freely.
After lunch, our guests settle into their suites, all looking out across Kastellorizo’s harbour below. It wouldn’t be a NOMS retreat without a welcome gift, and in each gift is an assortment of our favourite things: custom Noms du Jour x Mimi Holvast aprons designed by our talented Northern Rivers-based friend Mim, Ruth Reichl books (the MVP of food writing), Rudolph Care sunscreen, one of Sian’s recipes and an evil eye ornament to add a bit of extra luck.
There’s nothing we love more than an on-location aperitivo, so we pack up the bar and head to the island’s easternmost tip, where spritzes are poured overlooking an endless stretch of sea, the Turkish mountains rising dramatically in the distance. It feels like having an aperitivo at the edge of the universe. Boats drift by below while crescendos of conversation and laughter rise into the evening air. Dinner is served beneath the trees back at Casa Mediterraneo: spaghetti
with local seafood, a zesty garden salad and a sky full of stars overhead.
The wine list, curated by our resident sommelier Nikolina Skenderija, begins with a pét-nat from Chloé Chatzivariti in Goumenissa, which quickly becomes the week’s runaway favourite, before moving on to her Ni orange wine. Each night our table welcomes a handful of local friends, and this evening we’re joined by one of Casa Mediterraneo’s owners, Luc, and his partner, the Vietnamese chef Hung. No one seems in any hurry to call it a night.
Day 2: the feast
Kat and I are staying at Luc’s house, quite possibly the most beautiful house on Kastellorizo (which is saying a lot). Each morning we walk along the harbour to Casa Mediterraneo via Mourayo, stopping to chat to the owners and run through the day’s activities over freddo espressos. At Casa Med, French chef Pauline Loup lays out a smorgasbord of homemade dips and tarts, fresh granola, pastries, fruit and Greek yoghurt for breakfast on the terrace overlooking the harbour.
After breakfast, the mother-daughter duo behind Ta Platania, our favourite family-run taverna on Kastellorizo, and possibly all of Greece, arrive to teach us the secrets of gemista and dolmades. Watching this powerhouse yiayia prepare our favourite rice-stuffed dishes without a chopping board, wielding nothing more than a tiny paring knife, while wearing one of our custom aprons in Casa Mediterraneo’s outdoor kitchen, goes straight into the canon of life’s greatest moments. She shows us how they preserve vine leaves each season before we all attempt to roll our own dolmades, with varying degrees of neatness. We sit down in the shade to enjoy the fruits (or rather vegetables) of our labour, alongside Sian’s lemon and oregano roast chicken with olives, white wine and lemon butter beans, and horta with buttered pine nuts and yoghurt.
The afternoon is free for guests to spend as they please: some retreat to their suites to nap off lunch, others head down to the sea for a swim before we reconvene at the bar for a wine tasting, led by Kat and I, featuring a selection of wines handpicked by Nikolina, many of which also feature on Cantina’s wine list. We taste our way through wines from Chatzivaritis Estate in Goumenissa, Afianes on Ikaria, Kostaki Winery on Samos and Navitas Winery on Mount Olympus before turning to one of the country’s most misunderstood styles: retsina. Originally, pine resin was used to seal amphorae and prevent wine from spoiling during transport. Like so many culinary traditions, necessity eventually became preference, and thousands of years later, retsina remains one of the oldest continuously produced styles of wine in the world (and one of its most divisive).
As the sun begins to dip, snacks of fritto misto with garlic sauce and zucchini fritti materialise to keep us going until dinner. Marie, one of Casa Mediterraneo’s owners, joins us for an abundant Levantine-inspired feast of lemony beef and leek meatballs, lamb kofta, hummus, baba ganoush, cauliflower and hazelnut salad, marinated zucchini, fattoush and a cherry and custard tart with Chantilly cream. The wine is a choose-your-own affair from the bottles we’ve tasted earlier that afternoon.
Day 3: Turkish markets by day, gyros and outdoor movie by night
The moment we’ve been waiting for: a ferry ride to Kaş to explore the weekly pazar (farmers’ market), a vibrant, bustling metropolis of joy that feels a world away from Kastellorizo, despite the fact it’s so close you could almost reach out and touch it. We meet up with Güzin Çürük, the angelic chef behind the farm-to-table restaurant Doğal Anne Eli, so she can guide us through the market, a place she’s been coming to since she was a baby and where her family still runs a stall. We see carts selling freshly cracked almonds resting on beds of ice, stalls sprawled in every direction selling produce plump and jewel-bright, roadside stores piled high with woven baskets, trucks overflowing with flowers. It’s a welcome jolt to the senses, especially when the call to prayer rings out over the loudspeakers of a nearby Mosque. We take a seat at her family’s stall and, within minutes, our table is laden with fresh-from-the-grill gözleme to be washed down with ayran, a savoury yoghurt-based drink, while Güzin points out familiar faces and tells us how growing up in this market has influenced the way she cooks.
After a wander through the market, where Güzin introduces us to her favourite stallholders and we each buy edible souvenirs that take our fancy, we pile into a bus and wind up into the hills for lunch. Before we sit down to eat, Güzin takes us on a tour of the farm, wandering through fragrant citrus groves, past fields dotted with scarlet poppies and into the chicken coop. We lose our photographer, George, at one point, and eventually find her making friends with a litter of fresh kittens, which the rest of us, of course, promptly lose our minds over, too. Then it’s time for lunch, which turns out to be an endless procession of Turkish village cooking: bowls of smoky aubergine, bright tomato salads and thick garlicky yoghurt arrive alongside homemade breads still warm from the oven, fried eggs, local cheeses, fragrant herbs picked that morning, olive oil-laced vegetables and meats from the grill. Much of what’s on the table has come straight from the family’s own farm, and we make light work of every plate. Once we’re back in town, we each set off to explore the cluster of boutiques lining the main strip of Kaş town, most notable of all the vintage store, Silkroad Kaş, where we stock up on essential oils.
In the evening, Sian prepares perhaps the most beloved of all Greek classics: Gyros. The guests eat around the long table indoors before we head downstairs to the outdoor bar for a screening of The Taste of Things, watching beneath the stars while eating espresso martini gelato that the hotel bartender Mischa has prepared. It’s a wonderfully cosy affair.
Day 4: seafaring, sweets workshop, dinner and a show
Nothing in this life compares to the joy of an afternoon at sea, and today’s seafaring was one for the books. We set sail aboard Captain Yorgos’ beautiful wooden boat, drifting past the harbour and out into the open sea in search of the island’s best swimming spots and somewhere to drop anchor for the Greek feast Sian has spent the morning lovingly preparing.
Our first port of call is the Blue Grotto. As someone who usually subscribes to a ‘once you’ve seen one blue cave, you’ve seen them all’ philosophy, I am swiftly humbled by Kastellorizo’s. The tiny, nondescript opening that is visible from the water – so small, it requires us all to lie flat in the dinghy to squeeze through – gives way to a vast, cathedral-like cavern where the sea glows from within. We take a dip in the neon water, clamber back aboard and continue our voyage to a secret cove, where we swim, drink pét-nat and rosé, and feast on spanakopita, salad and a dessert of orange slices, koutamari and almond cake. We round out the day in another turquoise bay, which may or may not have ended with synchronised swimming to Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s Murder on the Dancefloor and the Macarena.
After some downtime at the hotel, we’re back in the outdoor kitchen to learn how to make ravani politiko, a syrup-soaked semolina cake, from the island’s best baker, Assimina. Later that evening, we head into town for an aperitivo before dinner at Lazarakis, the harbourside restaurant known for its seafood and unrivalled views across the harbour. We run into Güzin, who has caught the ferry over from Kaş for dinner with friends who, as it turns out, are members of a well-known Turkish band. Before long, they’re serenading our table, then the entire restaurant, eventually coaxing everyone to their feet to dance. It’s the perfect Saturday night.
Day 5: hiking, fisherman’s lunch and the last supper
After breakfast, we hike up into the oregano-scented mountains with Pandezis, the owner of the island’s puzzle museum, repository of information, and the man who actually carved out the walking trails
himself. We visit the island’s ancient olive and wine press, say hi to goats, stop to gawk at the endless stretches of blue bleeding into the surrounding uninhabited islands, and forage wild herbs for the afternoon’s cocktails.
Post-hike appetites at the ready, we set off for Mandraki Bay for a fish demonstration with Kostas, one of the island’s fishermen, who rounds the corner in his dinghy, not unlike a Greek David Beckham in appearance, and shows us how to gut, descale and prepare a fish to cook. Lunch follows: Sian’s seafood orzo that I would lay down my life for, grilled fish straight from the BBQ, and plenty of top-ups of white and orange wine. We tuck into the ravani politiko we made in yesterday’s workshop – it’s creamy and perfectly spiced, the best possible advertisement for Assimina’s baking prowess – before everyone heads for a plunge in the turquoise sea.
In the afternoon, Mischa mixes up cocktails using the herbs we’ve foraged, and then we gather around the table for our last supper. My god, were the taste buds in for a treat tonight: Sian cooked an abundant spread of braised
lamb with chickpeas and salsa verde, roast potatoes, beetroot and mint salad, village salad with cucumber and pomegranate, and rice pilaf. Tonight’s dinner guest is our friend Marianna, who dines with us before teaching us traditional Greek dances. We soon discover yiayiades are made of sterner stuff, with the tempo gathering speed and our fitness levels are called into question. We Zorba our way around the old tree on Casa Mediterraneo’s terrace before the speaker is eventually commandeered and the dance floor turns into a cultural exchange: Marianna teaching us the steps to her favourite panigiria dances, the group returning the favour with the Nutbush and Gangnam Style. And then what do you know, we’re all back at it with the Macarena.
By the time we finally call it a night, our cups runneth over and we fall into bed, thrumming from five days of cooking, eating, chatting, laughing, dancing and swimming together under the Aegean sun.
Day 6: goodbye breakfast
The best part of the week is undoubtedly getting to know the people who join us. Call us sentimental, but five days earlier everyone had arrived as strangers, united only by a love of good food; by our farewell breakfast, they’ve become friends. There’s a last-minute tarot spread, an exchange of numbers and Instagram handles, a few tears, promises to meet again in different corners of the world, and then our guests are off back home.
Fancy joining us? Our next Ways of Feasting retreats head back to Casa Mediterraneo in Kastellorizo (30 September–5 October), where we’ll reprise much of this itinerary with Greek-American chef Katerina Liakos, fresh from a summer with the Wine Is Fine team at Sunset Hotel in Patmos.
A few days later, we’re headed for Sifnos (9–14 October) with former Cantina Sifnos chef Konstantina Kasparidou and Cantina’s head sommelier, Nikolina Skenderija, for a week spent in the kitchens and visiting the farms of Greece’s most delicious island. Find out more and book at nomsdujour.com/retreats or follow our Substack NOMS or Instagram @nomsdujour for updates.
