I love restaurants with mixed reviews :) Especially when the negative ones are about the owners having character! Nothing encourages me more to go to a Restaurant than when the reviews say things like "awesome food, service sucks". That was the case for Ostria, and we found the service perfectly pleasant. But it did appears that if you got on the wrong side of the owners you may not enjoy it as much as we did, so just don't behave horribly :) Be a normal human being and you should have a lovely meal at Ostria!

Again, the portion size took us by surprise. We had wanted to order yet another dish to share but were advised against it, being told we had ordered enough. I love that :) Instead of trying to extract money from you, restaurants should help you order what you can and should eat.

Here is the Ostria menu on the wall outside:


Ostria is at the meeting of a couple of roads just behind the port of Hydra town, with a small indoors part, a part on the restaurant's terrace and across the road with another covered area.

Lovely blue and white buildings and stairs on these cute islands.


Here is the covered part across the street from the restaurant.



Across from a church.


With horses and donkeys wandering past. Hydra is amazing without cars, meaning horses and donkeys are used to transport suitcases and goods around the island.


We ordered some wine (and then I needed a nap, reminds me why I tend not to drink at lunchtime!), half a litre was 7 EUR.


I love the menus, hand-written in notebooks decorated by the owner's kid :)


The bread was pretty awesome. Still warm, crusty top, soft and chewy inside. Nom.


A plate of sun dried tomatoes topped with oregano could be close to being my idea of heaven with the yummy bread! Huge portion for 3.90 EUR. Dipping the bread in that olive oil flavoured by the tomatoes and herbs was lovely.


G kept up his ordering of salads... again huge! This was the Season Salad, 6.90 EUR with tomatoes, lettuce, olives, sliced green peppers, sun-dried tomato and cucumber. Lovely and fresh on a hot summer's day.


And of course, the ubiquitous potato order :) 4.80 EUR and of course tasty and freshly made, nicely salted made with proper potatoes that you can taste.


A new favourite dish and one I have recreated in a slightly different format, courgette fritters - zucchini balls on this menu - 6.90EUR. Here is my take on Greek Courgette Fritters.




Here is the cute hand-written menu I mentioned before, we really enjoyed our meal at Ostria and if you love food you probably will too. The owners were lovely to us, they even recognised some people who had visited years before on their honeymoon (the lady was now expecting her first child), they were lovely and thoughtful. So I suspect the people who didn't like the service were people who tend to look down on people serving them.... a.k.a. people I hate! Be kind to people serving you, you are in no way or form better than them.









Ostria
Votsi, Idra 180 40, Greece