Is this the most beautiful meal in the Med? You be the judge

On a busy seven-night cruise of the eastern Mediterranean on the good ship Norwegian Jade - where much food of many cuisines has been devoured by all on board - the Greek island of Santorini is our final port of call.

The best has been saved for last.

Arriving via taxi in the town of Oia, famous for its blue-domed churches set against whitewashed houses spilling down the upper slope of the Santorini caldera, I can't believe my eyes.

Is this the most beautiful place I have ever seen? Those views across the shimmering Aegean! And today the sun is shining, too. It's blue on blue, and blinding white, and the village throngs with tourists even outside of peak season.

But it doesn't matter. I join the crowds moving along the marble-paved, pedestrian-only, clifftop main street, past shops selling souvenirs, clothes, artworks, pottery, jewellery - there is much for a shopper here.

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All the while, I am eyeing restaurants where I might take a table on a terrace, and goggle at one of the world's most awesome panoramas as I eat a late lunch.

It is the Red Bicycle restaurant that eventually speaks to me. It sits on a bend as the street veers closer to the caldera rim, up some stairs and through a doorway onto a shaded and pretty dining terrace. It has been here, in a 19th-century mansion, since 2004. The Mediterranean menu is concise and simple, offering the likes of olives, dips, meat balls and moussaka.

I just want the hummus. It arrives on a white ceramic fig leaf, drizzled with olive oil, crunchy fried chickpeas on top, and warm and buttery garlic toast to dip into it. I order a bottle of Santorini's own Yellow Donkey, brewer of "hip hoppy kick-ass ales", and sit, and eat, and drink, and gaze. This is bliss, the hummus a modest yet flawless side-dish to the blue brilliance spread before me.

My eyes are doing the feasting after all.