Why Kalesma is the ultimate Greek getaway

Great plates

Pere Ubu specialises in small mezes – a range of plates which guests can mix and match as they fancy – and comes complete with a brick oven used to bake a daily selection of fresh homemade bread and pies. The dips served with fresh pita bread were divine, but other than a salads section, I thought the menu was heavily meat and fish focused, leaving me struggling to find a hot vegetarian main course.

However, to share the hotel’s general love of food, the idea is to host weekly sharing dinners exclusively for Kalesma guests. Otherwise, the restaurant is open to other island visitors too, who help add an even more stylish polish to the whole affair, as the sun sets on another hot day and the in-house DJ starts playing.

Perhaps as a nod to the potentially late nights to be had on this infamous party island, breakfast is served until midday: I loved the breakfast basket, filled with Mykonian phyllo pies and fresh horiatiko bread, along with delicious Greek honey, yoghurt and cheeses.

Rural idyll

Kalesma’s slick, minimalist spaces have been created by Greek design company K-studio, responsible for high-end Greek restaurant Opso in London and Mykonos Airport, while interiors are by Vangelis Bonios of Studio Bonarchi, which also designed those Athens restaurants.

It’s the kind of design that makes you immediately want to buy a farmhouse on an island or a rural idyll somewhere and then replicate every single thing you see; before realising it’s not quite your budget, such as the furniture in the lobby by fashion brand Rick Owens, known for its striking, dark, brutalist forms (and carrying hefty price tags).

There are 25 suites, and each can sleep up to two adults and two children – they’re really more like semi-detached villas. From above, buildings appear as a symmetrical series of white boxes, created to resemble a Mykonian village – I was staying in a suite closest to the action, or the heart of the “village” – and many of them tumble way further down the hill to Ornos Bay, linked by pathways lined with olive trees, vines, citrus fruits and fragrant herbs.

Suite dreams

Inside the suites, a kind of rustic-luxury aesthetic permeates, where natural sandblasted stone floors mingle with cream and sand fabrics, white sofas and wicker chairs beneath the exposed ceiling of dark chestnut beams and bamboo reeds. Mine had mesmerising views over its generous-sized pool and large terrace with shaded dining area, as well, of course, as a huge bathroom with outdoor shower option.

The bedroom had two sets of doors – one straight to the pool if you absolutely need to roll out of bed, pull back the oversized shutters and drapes and take a dip. I suggest you do – and the earlier the better, as the sunrise here was incredible. Kalesma is also said to be the only hotel in Mykonos where all accommodation comes with its own private heated pool.

Sitting on the spine of a hill in the north-west of the island, Kalesma can make the most of both sunrise to the east, and sunset to the west, best watched from sunset lounge, Aloni, with its fire pit and squishy sofas perfectly positioned to watch the sun disappear behind the island of Delos. There’s also a chapel at Kalesma, which adds to the photogenic calibre of the place.

Then there is the welcome cool of the main pool – equally photogenic and well-sized for a few lengths on warm sunny days. If the wallet allows, you can also clothe yourself head-to-toe in outfits which would look at home in those pages of Vogue, as the hotel shares its welcome lobby space with a gorgeous array of clothes and jewellery in an open-airy boutique. Kalesma, means ‘inviting’ in Greek, and this beautiful, considered hotel certainly is that – but only if you can afford the jet-set price tag.

How to book it

Rates in a suite at Kalesma start from €1,450 per night on a B&B basis, while villas are from €3,450.