Sixteen houses among hills and dunes above Livadia bay.
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The wake-up call usually comes from a rooster on the farm next door.
The name is about waking up. Athanasia Comninos founded The Rooster after a wake-up call of her own, as the hotel tells it: a decisive moment in her life that made her rethink what matters. The hotel opened in 2021 above Livadia bay on Antiparos, the small island next to Paros.
“At The Rooster, we don’t have guestrooms or suites. You stay in your own home.”
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The houses are spread across some 30 acres of hills, untamed gardens and dunes. Comninos, who studied interior design in London, placed each one with her architects and engineers for its view, its shade, its shelter from the wind and its distance from the next. Athens studio VOIS modelled them on the katikies, the island’s low farmers’ cottages, building in tawny local stone with plaster the colour of sand.
Every house has its own pool and an outdoor shower. Inside there are driftwood four-posters and Balinese daybeds, linen kimonos and hand-blown glassware. In Wilderness Valley, close to the beach, yoga mats and beach towels are laid out and the cooler holds wine for sundowners. Not every house looks out to sea; if that matters, ask for Haven of Tranquility or Love Shack.
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Some of what reaches the table comes from the bostani, the vegetable garden a gardener tends 1.5 km away in Kambos, the rural heart of the island. The eggs come from the hotel’s own chicken coop, guarded, naturally, by a rooster. Despina Bitzaraki, a self-taught baker with Cretan roots, bakes all the hotel’s sourdough here every day. Four times a week she also cooks lunch in the wood-fired oven for two to fifteen guests, finishing, for instance, with goat’s milk crème caramel.
To have the farm to yourself, rent the Farmhouse: three bedrooms, a plunge pool, and farmers, beekeepers and shepherds for neighbours. Marina, the farm’s hostess, lives on the island and knows what is coming up there, from open-fire feasts with head chef Simos to a ceramics class with a local potter.
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Simos Triantafyllou has been cooking for three decades. What he serves each evening depends on what the fishermen and the farm bring in that day; vegetables are pickled and fermented, fish and meat go on the grill, into clay or into the oven for hours. Dinner is in the Secret Garden, a courtyard among rock walls that only reveals itself in the evening. Some guests come back every year for the same plates: piri-piri squid with samphire and burnt lemon, bucatini with slow-braised goat ragout. The dishes they arrive on are made by the hotel’s own potter.
Breakfast is served around a lemon tree or under the pergola, with sourdough still warm from the oven, honey and home-made preserves. If you’d rather stay by your own pool, salads and skewers can be brought over, or a chef can come and barbecue at your house: octopus with roasted peppers, say, or spit-roast rooster in a citrus glaze. The hotel’s name offers the bird no protection.
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Livadia, the bay below the houses, is a sandy beach backed by dunes, with hardly anything built along it and open to the north. When the meltemi blows, it becomes the island’s surf beach, and the hotel’s instructors will pick out the right board. On calm days there are beach chairs, parasols and paddleboards, free for guests. Driftwood tipis stand in the dunes, a vintage van between them serves flatbreads and negronis, and an ice cream cart waits on the path to the sea.
To get out on the water, go with George “Sargos” Marianos. He has spent his life fishing around the island in his wooden kaiki and now takes the hotel’s guests along. Whatever you catch, the chefs turn into kakavia, the islands’ fisherman’s soup.
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Every treatment at the House of Healing begins with a conversation about sleep, diet, old injuries and stress. The house ritual is called the Smoking Stool: smoke from herbs and resins rises from the base of the spine upwards, accompanied by sound and oracle cards. For something more hands-on, or rather feet-on, book Ashiatsu, a massage given with the feet, with overhead bars for support. For Ayurvedic treatments, the hotel has its own practitioner, Abhilash Nair.
Yoga takes place in the open-air pavilion every morning at nine, free for guests. In the spa itself, the hotel asks you to switch your phone off.
Before you leave, look into the hotel boutique. Comninos stocks it with finds from her travels and from friends, among them silk pyjamas printed with Antiparos landscapes and dresses made from embroidered tablecloths.
A tip from the house
On the Kambos plain, among farmers and beekeepers, lies an olive grove that The Rooster counts among its favourite local secrets. Agrilia has some 2,500 Koroneiki trees, and the family presses the olives in their own mill within hours of picking. Tours with tastings can be booked by enquiry through the website. The olives are picked in October and The Rooster closes on 5 October, so if you would like to join the harvest, check dates with Agrilia before you plan around it. Kambos, Antiparos.
Visit Agrilia’s websiteResearched from the hotel’s official information, editorially checked on 6 October 2026. We do not claim to have stayed here. Prices and availability directly from the hotel.
The Rooster · Our Houses · Wilderness Valley · Haven of Tranquility · Love Shack · The Farmhouse · Our Farm · Food & Drink · Days in the Rooster · House of Healing · Destination · Hotel Policies · Booking site: About
The hotels provide these images for editorial use. Where a photographer has been confirmed to us, they are named here.
Fish taverna · Agios Georgios · approx. 15 min by car
Three generations of the Pipinos family run this taverna right on the water at Agios Georgios, looking across to Despotiko. The day's catch goes on the grill alongside sun-dried mackerel and charcoal octopus; stop by at midday and they will keep your fish for dinner.
Chosen by CINCIN, not paid for. Travel times are approximate. Opening hours and menus change, so please check with the venue before you go.
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The Rooster: sixteen houses above Livadia Bay
How the houses are laid out on the hills above Livadia, what they are built from, and what a day there involves.
