One&Only Aesthesis: The Greek Art of Living Well

On the Athenian Riviera, half an hour from the Acropolis, One&Only Aesthesis pairs the privacy of an island retreat with the life of a capital city, and with an older Greek idea of what it means to live well.

“One swallow does not make a summer, nor does one day.”  Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics

From our villa, the sea was close enough to hear at night and to reach in a few steps. Behind the pines, out of sight, lay Athens, with its history, its restaurants and its long evenings, a thirty-minute drive away. It took me a day to understand how unusual this arrangement is. Most places offer one or the other. One&Only Aesthesis offers both, and keeps them carefully apart.

The ancient Greeks had a word for the way we know the world through the senses: aesthesis. After a few days here, the name began to read less like branding and more like a description.

The Story Behind One&Only

The philosophy of One&Only goes back to the hotelier Sol Kerzner. In 1975 he opened Le Saint Géran in Mauritius, a resort that helped set the terms for what a stay in the Indian Ocean could be. When the One&Only brand was formally introduced in 2002, its principle was that no two properties should resemble each other. Each would take its identity from its location, its culture and its character.

The name is a statement of intent. It describes not a category of hotel but a place that cannot be repeated somewhere else.

One&Only Aesthesis, the brand's first resort in Greece, brings this idea to the Athenian Riviera. It occupies the former grounds of the Asteria beach club in Glyfada, which in the post-war decades drew international celebrities, artists and the fashionable society of Athens. The resort opened in November 2023 and refers to that period without imitating it: mid-century lines, gardens of Mediterranean pine and olive, and a collection of bungalows and villas set at a discreet distance from one another.

The property covers 21 hectares of protected beach and forest reserve. Once inside it, the city beyond the gates is surprisingly easy to forget.

An Island Half an Hour from the Acropolis

Our villa stood a few steps from the water, above a sheltered stretch of the Saronic Gulf. My first thought was of the Maldives, where the sea becomes part of the room and the line between inside and outside is hard to locate. The difference was that we were not on a remote atoll. We were in Athens.

The terrace became the centre of our days. It held a private pool, an outdoor shower, loungers and a double daybed, and the breeze off the gulf kept even the early afternoon comfortable. I read there, looking up at the water between chapters. Some afternoons we played chess with the sea a few metres beyond the board. Hours passed without anyone checking the time.

Inside, the quality of the villa showed in its details rather than its gestures: natural materials, furniture chosen to be used rather than admired, fine tableware, a carefully stocked premium minibar, soft white bathrobes. Nothing had been added for effect.

The real surprise was on the other side of the villa. Turned away from the sea was a second outdoor room, arranged around a private fireplace. In the evenings I sat there with a cup of tea and watched the fire until it was time for bed. Water on one side, fire on the other. It is the simplest description of the place I can offer.

It also explains why the resort works outside the summer. Athenian winters are mild, and in July and August the wind off the sea tempers the heat. The terraces belong to the long days; the fireplace gives cooler evenings a ritual of their own.

The Greek Idea of Living Well

Aristotle called it eudaimonia, a word usually translated as happiness but closer in meaning to flourishing. It describes not a passing pleasure but a life in which wellbeing, purposeful activity and personal fulfilment come together. I thought about it most often at Club One.

One morning I took a bicycle from the villa and rode through the gardens to the resort's sports and wellness complex. It is a long way from the conventional hotel gym. The fitness centre is fully equipped, with separate areas for more demanding athletic training, outdoor exercise spaces and studios for yoga, Pilates and group classes. There are tennis and padel courts, and a large heated outdoor pool that keeps swimming possible well beyond the summer months.

What stayed with me was the atmosphere. Guests can train in earnest, join a class or come only for a morning swim. Club One also serves the resort's community of One&Only Private Homes, whose owners and long-stay guests use it as part of daily life rather than as a holiday amenity. It is easy to imagine staying several weeks here, keeping familiar routines while living beside the sea.

Three Beaches, Three Temperaments

The resort has three beaches, and choosing between them quickly became part of the day. They are not ranked so much as matched to different moods, and over the course of our stay we came to rely on all three.

Aesthesis Beach, the main one, lies in front of the resort and sets its rhythm. It is the most open of the three, a long stretch of sand and calm water where families, couples and early swimmers share the shoreline without crowding one another. With the hotel a few steps away, it is the easiest place to settle in for a full day.

Manko has a different energy. By day it works as a beach club, with loungers at the water’s edge and Peruvian dishes, from ceviche to shrimp bao, served to guests on the sand. Locals arrive alongside hotel guests, and at weekends live music and later DJ sets carry the afternoon well into the evening. It is the beach for company, long lunches and a pisco sour as the light changes.

Mystiko, whose name means secret in Greek, is the quietest. Reserved for adults and screened by a belt of pines, it occupies a small natural cove that feels closer to a lagoon than to a resort beach. The water is clear enough to watch small fish in the shallows, and the comforts, wide loungers and attentive service, do not compete with the setting. It is a place for reading and swimming, and for very little else.

Over a few days the pattern settled on its own: an early swim at Aesthesis Beach, a long lunch at Manko, the last quiet hours of the afternoon at Mystiko. Together they give the resort the variety of a whole stretch of coastline rather than a single hotel beach.

A Taste of Greece and Beyond

The olive trees in the resort's gardens recall where Greek cooking begins, with the tree that, in the myth, won Athena the patronage of the city. The kitchens here take that inheritance seriously. It is rare for every restaurant in a hotel, breakfast included, to hold the same standard. At Aesthesis they did.

ORA by Ettore Botrini is the resort's signature restaurant, set above the pool with the sea beyond. Its name works in two languages, meaning hour in Greek and now in Italian, which suits a chef of Greek and Italian roots. Botrini reworks Mediterranean classics around regional produce, and the cooking is fresh and carefully judged, with the flavour carried by the ingredients rather than by technique.

Breakfast deserves its own mention, which is seldom true of hotels: good ingredients, fresh pastries, seasonal fruit and Greek specialities.

Hospitality, though, is never only a matter of what arrives on the plate. I still remember our waiter, Sokratis, whose attention and natural generosity shaped an entire evening. The name seemed fitting in a country where philosophy and hospitality have long been part of everyday life. The Greeks call this spirit philoxenia, the love of welcoming strangers. At Aesthesis it is a working practice rather than a slogan.

Manko is a different proposition. Part of the Peruvian chef Gastón Acurio's international group, it combines restaurant and beach club above the water, and its cooking, Peruvian with Nikkei influences, is bolder and brighter than anything else at the resort. As the sun goes down the sea holds the last of the light, the music rises and dinner becomes an occasion.

For Japanese cooking, Sumosan operates as a seasonal outpost, serving contemporary dishes and carefully prepared sushi. Taken together, the restaurants would stand comparison with those of a major international city.

The Guerlain Spa

The resort's spa is the first the French house of Guerlain has opened in Greece. Set among pines and olive trees, it brings a Parisian beauty tradition to the unhurried pace of the Riviera.

My treatment was the Imperial Relaxing Massage, and what made it memorable was the therapist, Tatiana. Her technique was exact, and the Guerlain products left a fragrance that has stayed with me. I have long believed that scent preserves a place more faithfully than photographs, and certain Guerlain notes now return me to that afternoon in Glyfada.

The menu also includes rituals created for this resort alone, among them Nymph of the Athenian Riviera, a two-hour treatment drawn from the surrounding coast, and Legendary Strength, designed for deeper muscular release. Together with Club One, the spa gives the resort its balance between activity, care and rest.

Between the Energy of Athens and the Silence of the Sea

In the end, it is the location that sets Aesthesis apart. Glyfada is one of the liveliest neighbourhoods on the Athenian Riviera, known for its boutiques, restaurants, cafés and evening promenade. The historic centre of Athens lies about thirty minutes away, as does the airport, which makes the Acropolis, the museums and the city's older quarters easy to reach. The resort's own transfers handle the movement between hotel, city and airport without fuss.

One evening, after a few hours in Athens, I returned to the villa and noticed the contrast again. Luxury is usually measured in grand gestures, rare materials and attentive service. Aesthesis has all three, but what stayed with me was simpler: the freedom to decide how each day would go. A swim before breakfast. A bicycle ride to a morning class. A long lunch, an afternoon with a book beside the pool, Athens after sunset, and a fireplace waiting on the return.

The ancient Greeks spent centuries asking what it means to live well, and Aristotle’s answer was that it takes time. One swallow does not make a summer, but it does announce one. A few days on the Athenian Riviera work in the same way. They show what a good life can look like: the sea on one side, a fire on the other, the city within reach, and enough time to notice all three.