There’s a kind of place that disappears from memory the moment you try to share it. Not because it wasn’t real, but because it was too good to give away. Too whole. Too sacred. Vira Potzi in Ierapetra is one of those places — not just a restaurant, but a meeting point for the soul, where strangers become kin and every plate whispers something ancient and unspoiled.
We first wrote about Vira Potzi years ago, when a quiet surgeon-friend named Manolis guided us there with that rare kind of knowing some Cretans seem to carry in their bones. The food was sublime, the location humbly spectacular — but what stayed with us, more than anything, were the eyes of George and Alex, the men who run the place. Their kindness and quiet mastery echoed something Nikos Kazantzakis might have called a spiritual clarity.
This week, we returned. Not as customers, but as friends, welcomed with a level of warmth that cannot be faked or packaged. George opened early to see us. That gesture alone — simple, generous, sincere — said everything about the kind of man he is. The kind of place this is. This overdue visit reminded me why we moved to Crete in the first place, and prompted me to create a short video.
There was no Alex this time, but his spirit lingers in the kitchen and the character of the seafront restaurant. George, elegant and effortless as ever, carried the full flame. We began with steamed mussels (for Mig), shrimp tempura (for me — and astonishing), and a shared dish of velvety Cretan fava served with warm bread. George added a surprise platter of dakos crowned with anchovies, a salt-kissed love note from the sea. Then came the grilled sea bass filet, laid tenderly atop fresh mussels — a main course that could humble even the haughtiest gastronomes.
Mig, feeling a bit under the weather, stuck to mussels, but the flavors were so generous, the warmth of the place so healing, that I could see her heart smile again by dessert. And what a dessert — somewhere between bougatsa and a rich, creamy pudding, layered with the most delicate sweet pastry. Impossible to name. Impossible to forget.
Some say places like this are dying. That algorithm-friendly menus and factory-farm smiles are replacing the soul of Crete. But not here. Not while George is still swearing he’ll steal our boat if we ever park it in Ierapetra. Not while the staff treat every dish as a love letter. Not while friends return after two years and nothing — absolutely nothing — has been lost.
If you go, don’t go just for the food. Go for the deeper thing. The conversation. The philosophy. The silence between courses that tells you: this is what hospitality was always meant to be.
But please — only go if you need to feel something again. Something sacred. Something whole.
