Andronis Boutique Hotel

While it doesn’t quite live up to the facilities and room quality of other nearby hotels, Andronis offers luxury stays at a good value.

• The hot tubs available in each room
• The cliffside restaurant, featuring a unique table looking over the entire island.
• The central location in the heart of Oia.

As Santorini grows more popular, the best hotels book out months in advance. This puts the pressure on the luxurious but impulsive traveler, who wants to stay in the finest properties, but doesn’t plan so far ahead. But on Santorini, Andronis stands as a beautiful option that, while not quite on the level of some of its neighbors, provides a high level of quality that miraculously remains available longer than one may expect.

This is in part due to its nearly 50 rooms spread across two properties in the town of Oia (23 in the Boutique Hotel, 25 in the Luxury Suites). Each room is named after a hero of Greek mythology, and all come with a full-sized hot tub. Eight suites, spread across the two properties, are pool suites; each comes equipped with a large plunge pool, which sprawl across their patios.

Luckily, the patio is where any guests will spend the majority of their time, because the rooms--built into what used to be wine caves before Santorini’s tourism boom--are hardly the draw of the hotel. Accommodations maintain their original aesthetic, with dark floors that at once serve to contrast the whitewashed walls while also preventing the rooms from ever truly feeling bright and airy during the day. The furniture is built into the wall like natural formations, and while the ultimate design is pleasing in theory, it doesn’t do much to inspire a feeling of comfort. Combine this with the lack of basic facilities like a spa or gym and it’s easy to understand why other hotels on the island book out ahead of this.

The star of the property is its restaurant, a large cliffside extravagance covered in latticework that is equal parts dark-stained beam and bougainvillea blooms. One end, in a section of tables best reserved the same instant as the rooms themselves, is situated on a peninsular cliff overlooking the Aegean. The menu here is prix-fixe, but offers a delightful pairing of traditional Greek cuisine with the famous Santorini wines. It may not be the first choice of hotels on the island, but Andronis could never be considered second rate.

Foodies will love the hotel for its restaurant, while couples, especially those with last-minute interest, will appreciate the option of a luxury hotel at a value.