Three generations,
one stretch of coast.

In April 1962, Andreas Vlachos painted the front door of his late father-in-law's cottage a particular shade of pale green and hung a hand-lettered sign that read, simply, Talasea. There were six rooms. The first guest was a Dutch ornithologist who stayed eleven nights, paid in cash, and returned every spring for the next thirty-one years.

The hotel grew by accident, then on purpose. A second wing in 1971 — built around the surviving fig tree, which still bears fruit each August. A third in 1989. The garden cottages were converted from goat sheds in 1996, when Sofia decided she'd had enough of "small dark rooms with a wonderful view." The cliff suites were the work of the second generation in 2004 — Yannis and Eleni, Andreas and Sofia's son and daughter-in-law — and remain the only pieces of the property visibly designed by an architect.

Maria, the third generation, took over in 2014. She has spent the decade since gently subtracting: removing the front desk, removing the lobby bar, removing the second seating's printed menu, removing room numbers and replacing them with names. There is now exactly one screen on the property — the small box Stavros uses each morning to print the day's lunch — and we are quietly hoping to retire it within the year.

What we believe

That a hotel is a small, daily act of hospitality, repeated. That a room is improved by removing things from it. That dinner is the most important hour of any day, and should not be hurried. That guests should arrive tired and leave rested, and that anything else is a failure of the house.

We do not have a brand standard, a uniform, a key card, or a check-in time. We have a guest list, a phone, two seatings, and the same staff who were here last year and the year before that.

"Talasea is small, slow, and entirely the point. They did not flinch when we extended. Our taxi did."

How we work

The dining room serves two seatings, lunch and dinner, with a single menu decided each morning. Breakfast is laid out on the long table in the courtyard from seven, and you take what you'd like. There is one bar, in the dining room, open from before lunch until late. We are happy to bring a drink to your terrace if you'd prefer to read.

Reservations are confirmed by hand within forty-eight hours, by the same person, every time, in case there are questions about the rooms or the islands or the boats. We are open from the first of April to the eighth of November, and closed the rest of the year for the winter, the staff, and the slow work of repair.