Corfu beyond the crowds: Escape parties and package holidays for authentic tavernas and quiet hilltop villages

Independent

07-07-2025

Hailing from south Corfu, I was raised during the summer months by my wilful and wild Greek yiayia (grandmother), and the enduring charm that this part of the island holds over me has had an undeniable influence on every aspect of my life.
Even after my parents moved my brother and me to the UK in our youth, the misunderstood south of Corfu, which people usually associate with package holidays and a party atmosphere, has always been my home.
My yiayia is an extension of this and the inspiration behind my latest cookbook, Mediterranea: Life-perfected Recipes from Grandmothers of the Mediterranean. She, like many others in her village, has rarely ventured elsewhere, and the locals she is friends with there have become my extended family and a reminder of the charm that this part of Corfu holds over me.
While the north of the island promises a glimpse of how the famed writer Gerald Durrell's family lived – in an idyllic white coastal mansion in Kalami village surrounded by ritzy port towns – the south offers an insight into the true life of Corfiot islanders, from family-run vineyards to undisturbed fishing villages and beachside tavernas.
For me, there's nothing quite like taking the main coastal road south of Corfu from the much-frequented airport that sits at this verdant Ionian island's heart.
While most visitors will head straight for the pastel-toned Venetian old town of the capital, or else the aptly coined 'Kensington-on-Sea' in the northeast, due to the well-heeled British community that decamps to their perfectly preened villas there each summer, my destination of choice in Corfu will always be the south.
This area has a sullied reputation due to the 18-30s crowds drawn to its infamous Kavos strip and the lure of package tourism that boomed here in the 1990s. Yet that single road of beach clubs and bars is a half-hour drive away from where I grew up and is becoming a forgotten pocket of the island as the years tick by.
As I drive towards our white-washed village away from town, personal landmarks signal that I'm approaching home. A sprawling, centuries-old olive tree hangs over the winding road after I pass the tourist strip of Messonghi, signalling the untamed terrain that lies ahead. Oleander grows along the turquoise-lapped coastline, uncontrollable shocks of pink reaching in through the car windows.
What the north has in fancy villas, the south makes up for in nature. The 'Corfu Trail' – a hiking route that weaves from the south to the north of the island – begins at Arkoudilas beach, where Jurassic cliffs and dense forest dripping with wild strawberries and figs feel prehistoric, lost completely to time and far from civilisation.
'These olive trees were here long before us and will be here long after us,' says my friend Spiros Dafnis when I drop by his olive mill, The Governor, to pick up my five-litre can of oil en route home. He speaks in a very poetic way and manages to romanticise the elements of nature that I took for granted in my youth.
Together with his brother George, Spiros has taken over the family plots of land around Agios Matthaios village, producing a high phenolic olive oil. Locally, the young brothers are credited for bringing a heightened awareness of the value of the land and the importance of milling quality olive oil. They offer tours amongst the ancient, gnarly trees that take visitors deep into the groves of the south, on hikes that reveal palaeolithic caves and the remarkably well-preserved Byzantine castle of Gardiki.
Similarly, the family-run vineyard Pontiglio has revived winemaking on the island, investing their livelihoods at a time of economic crisis in Greece into preserving grape varieties unique to Corfu. 'When we started, the vineyards of Corfu were in danger of disappearing,' says Konstantina Ntini, whose family's mission is to preserve abandoned vineyards across the south of the island. Sprawling 60 acres outside of Lefkimmi, Pontiglio is a 20-minute drive from my village, set away from the tourist hotspots of the island, tucked into wild-flower-flecked meadows where the hum of the cicadas is the soundscape to an afternoon of wine tasting.
The matriarch of the household, Athina Kirtzoglou, serves up local Corfiot dishes and offers culinary classes as cats slink in and out from beneath the vines, while stepfather and daughter Charalambos Kouris and Konstantina Ntini tend to the harvest or otherwise, their speciality Corfiot wines.
While I will forever adore the holy trinity of grilled sea bream, chorta (wild greens) and tzatziki at my local Taverna Aristos in Perivoli village, a culture of gastronomy is flourishing in southern Corfu, partly thanks to the young producers championing local produce. On the sandy, cliff-lined beach of Agios Gordios, Mikro Nisi cooks fish he catches locally from his traditional kaiki boat, while the contemporary restaurant, Taverna, prides itself on locally sourced, organic ingredients crafted into dishes that sing of a Mediterranean summer.
And nothing says summer to me more than balmy afternoons spent in the company of locals in the hilltop villages of Argyrades (the village my grandmother comes from) and Chlomos, where old men sit outside of Kafeneions, playing backgammon while they sip ouzo or silty Greek coffees. Here, women like my own yiayia sit on plastic chairs outside of pastel-toned homes, waiting to welcome strangers through beaded curtains and drapery they crocheted themselves to demonstrate their famous Greek hospitality with a snack and a chat.
It is these women who have inspired my latest cookbook about Mediterranean living, and it's the very essence of these afternoons, whiling away the hours with 'the girls' (my yiayia's nonagenarian friends) that has made me truly appreciate where I am from.
Still largely untouched by tourism, these villages and the wild areas that surround them are a testament to slow living, a true insight into the real Corfu and a reason to visit beyond the obvious sun, sea and sand.
Where to stay
Panorama Notos is a collection of simple, self-catering apartments on a turquoise-lapped private beach surrounded by tropical flora (from £65 per night).
Roumanades Estate is an authentic Venetian home surrounded by dense olive groves.
Oliver Suites, A former olive mill transformed into a luxury hotel on the picturesque southeast of the island (from £350 per night).