chip ins island resort and casino theater

Rooms are decked out in Armani Casa and Bang & Olufsen, with Bulgari soaps and lotions (and special kids’ versions) in the bathrooms, while outside teak sunbeds shaded by zingy, canary-yellow umbrellas surround each pool (stocked with a menagerie of inflatables plus baby pool seats and armbands). This is not driftwood, sun-faded, rustic Greece. So it’s surprising that this tucked-away spot on Zakynthos’s green east coast, with its nine houses on a hillside above an immaculate bay, remains so under the radar.

The space, yes, the privacy too, but also the bed-making in your wake, the sweeping up of toys and trails of crumbs. The promise of a villa that has all the bells and whistles of a hotel is pretty irresistible. If games are more your thing, there are giant quoits and board games by the pool, or else hotfoot it down to Las Salinas itself for sailing, paddleboarding and kayaking for the kids, followed by cocktails and DJs for the grown-ups at newly revived ‘90s beachside icon, Hostal Mar y Sal. The standout at La Pandilla, however, is the cult of creativity – regular workshops range from the artistic to avant-garde, with local experts shipped in to teach theatre, flamenco, knitting, painting, photography, cooking and ceramics in the two stylish studios. Terraces open onto lush tropical gardens stashed with mango, fig and lemon trees and the pool bar, with its all-day, local-produce menu and roster of visiting DJs, is the heart of the whole affair. The creamy, curvaceous casitas sleep from two to 10 (or rent the whole lot and bring 65 mates) and have been designed with extended families in mind and can be as private or as communal as you like. La Pandilla (‘the gang’, in Spanish) is a clutch of 10 whitewashed casitas clustered around an oval pool just ten minutes from the ice-white slick of Salinas. Something about the pool and beach combo ticks all the right boxes, so when chic French hotelier Sophie Berdah, of Paris’s hip Le Citizen, stumbled across a rough Salinas diamond – formerly Fred’s Finca – she pounced.

Chip ins island resort and casino theater