the UK Restaurant and Hotel Zine


Dine Online stayed at the Hotel St Nicolas Bay in Crete...
Greek tourism without the tat?

St Nicolas Bay


In its brochure, the Hotel St Nicolas Bay describes itself as a "superb and luxurious Bungalow Hotel". Superb and luxurious it certainly is, but the word "bungalow" evokes, at least in the English reader, visions of sprawling suburbia, or worse still those dreary seaside hamlets on the outskirts of towns like Bexhill-on-Sea. By contrast, St Nicolas Bay Hotel is an altogether more visionary concept, the brainchild of its architect owner. Each of the rooms, suites, studios, apartments, call them what you will, is different, with its own unique decor and furnishings which imparts an individual atmosphere.

St Nicolas Bay The hotel is located on an isthmus just to the north of the tourist town and port of Aghios Nicolaos. There are wonderful views across the bay towards mountains and little islets rearing up from the dark blue sea.

We put in for a few nights on our exploratory tour of the Eastern end of the island. We were rather fortunate in being allocated a top class suite with its own terrace and private pool - Oh bliss, Oh rapture - no rushing out before breakfast to 'bag' sunbeds with towels and beachbags! After the initial novelty of a morning wallowing in the pool like a couple of superannuated walruses, we decamped to the sheltered beach area which is like a miniature harbour. I preferred the carefully landscaped rocky places where you have the double advantage of a refreshing breeze and you don't get sand everywhere. There are two larger seawater pools and an indoor pool and health spa.

Ag NickThe water sports centre down at the beach is run by very helpful and competent Dutch staff and we watched delighted guests whizzing around at high velocity behind a very powerful speedboat in a variety of contraptions, depending on your level of skill and tolerance to being thrown about! At this point in our holiday, the seeds of curiosity about the banana-boat were sowed, albeit tentatively.

On our first evening we ate in the main hotel restaurant, trying out the standard meal offered to the majority of guests who are on half board. The out of town location of many of these resort hotels means that they have a higher captive audience for dining than most city centre hotels could hope for. The meal was pretty good, conforming to a well tried formula which we discovered is broadly similar in most of the larger hotels in Crete.

There's soup, followed by a hot and cold buffet of starters composed largely of local dishes, then a main course and a dessert buffet with plenty of variety. The hot and cold starter buffet was outstanding, making me wonder why anyone would want a hot soup (particularly in that climate). Ditto, the main course, which on this occasion was veal accompanied by a well executed tricolore of potatoes - plain mash, carrot mash and a delicious green pea mash. But this was only day one, and it occurred to me that after a while one would be only too glad to ring the changes a bit.

St Nicolas Bay Every night there's a different theme in one of the other restaurants. We had an excellent open air fish grill accompanied by a strange trio of mature gentleman musicians, to whom I gradually warmed as the evening progressed. One simply couldn't fail to marvel at their linguistic skills - they sang convincingly in six languages - and they taught us some rather more complex and interesting dance steps than the basic Zorba lurch.

The fish was very good and the dessert buffet was a showcase of interesting Cretan culinary art. On our last night we went along to the Cretan evening where we tried yet more chargrilled fish, this time a huge lobster and some perfectly cooked seabream. This all took place in a traditional open air Kafenion, complete with a tiny chapel. Given that places like Aghios Nicolaos are tourist traps, these made up faux-villages in the resort Ag Nickhotels enable you to enjoy the "traditional" atmosphere without the tatty trappings.

We went into the town by speedboat, in a style befitting the guests of so illustrious an establishment. The unique feature of "Ag Nick" as the Brits call it, is its 'bottomless' lagoon, which must have been a volcanic crater. It was originally quite cut off from the sea, but a short canal was cut, enabling small fishing boats to use it as a safe harbour. Nowadays, it's fringed with wall-to-wall picturesque little restaurants, all serving identical food: Tsatsiki (cucumber and yoghurt dip) and dolmades (stuffed vine leaves), souvlaki (pork kebabs) followed by various sticky puds made from filo pastry, pistachios and syrup.

St Nicolas Bay

No wonder the hotel restaurant is so popular! It was a relief to get back to the peace and quiet of our beautifully furnished apartment, studio, suite - but not, definitely NOT bungalow!

Clifford Mould flew to Crete with Caledonian Airways from Gatwick. Most of the charter flights from the UK to Crete arrive and depart on a Tuesday. UK package holidays to the Hotel St Nicolas Bay are arranged by Simply Crete


Hotel St Nicolas Bay
PO Box 47-GR-721 00 Aghios Nicolaos Crete Greece
Tel: 0841 25041-3 Fax: 0841 24556


Hotel St Nicolas Bay is a member of Grand Heritage Hotels
International reservations: +44(0) 171 244 6699 Fax 244 7799
email info@grandheritage.demon.co.uk

Dine Online has reviewed some other Grand Heritage Hotels:

  • The Milestone, London

  • Pennyhill Park, Bagshot

  • Sir Christopher Wren's House, Windsor

  • Taplow House, Maidenhead

  • Tillmouth Park, Northumberland


    Please send your comments to us at: Dine-Online
    NB Dine Online is an independent review magazine. We have no business connections with any of the restaurants and hotels we write about. We do not make bookings or reservations for you!

    Back to Dine Online Home Page


    Dine Online Copyright Clifton Media Associates September 1999, All rights reserved.

    Views or opinions expressed by authors are not necessarily those of the publishers, Clifton Media Associates. While every care is taken in compiling this publication, the publishers cannot assume responsibility for any effects arising therefrom.