Condé Nast Traveller

13 October 2021

We’ve become so accustomed to the sand-between-your-toes boho aesthetic of seafront hangouts around the world, with their raffia-woven shades swinging in the breeze, their driftwood furniture and sun-bleached insouciance, that it’s suddenly much more intriguing when a place takes it firmly in the other direction. Here, on a palm-lined promenade of Cyprus’s south-west coast, local architecture studio Psomas has thrown caution to the wind entirely and created a structure that is part sci-fi Tracy Island – all polished concrete curves – and part art installation, with a forest canopy of metal trees casting perforated shadows over the upstairs bar… Part of the Thanos gang (the family behind the Almyra, Anassa and Annabelle hotels on the island), Antasia marks a sea change for low-rise Paphos, a shifting of its demographic and a siren call for those clinging on to hope of some bone-warming Mediterranean sunshine late into autumn.