When you say the words ‘family-friendly hotel’ to a parent — or any adult — expect a chilled stare of despair. The thought of all-you-can-eat restaurants sluiced down at the end of a noisy, 6pm feeding time at the zoo, urine-warmed baby pools and a 4am screaming wake-up squall from every other room is enough to make anyone run for the hills. So when friends on an east London mum’s WhatsApp group (where else?) suggested we try Ammos near Chania in Crete, we were sold on a dream of a bijou, design-led spot that somehow caters for families with young kids in the most low-key, inoffensive way.
Design-obsessive Nikos Tsepetis took over the hotel from his medic parents in the 1990s as a twenty-something, first succumbing to the hedonistic Swedish and German crowd in the mood for a whole lot of ouzo for their drachma. But after a handful of British families chanced upon his increasingly chic, white-washed 33-roomer on the beach, he realised that Greece’s largest island had a gap in the market for a boutique hotel with style for couples not willing to let go of aesthetics just because they had a toddler in tow.
