Acane

From the floor to the wine pass

The glass lands after the fire has done its work. Sotiris Neofytidis, Sommelier at Acane in Limassol, builds the pour around that moment: meat from the Parrilla, acid from aquachile, salt, smoke, heat. His station is not separate from the kitchen. It answers it.

Neofytidis came to wine through service, first as a waiter, then through the competitive discipline that shaped his palate and his nerve. In 2016, he won Best Young Sommelier of Cyprus. His later recognition includes Best Sommelier of Cyprus in 2022, Best Sommelier of the Balkans in 2022, and 10th place in The Best Sommelier of the World in 2023. Those titles matter here less as decoration than as evidence of repetition: memory work, blind tasting, service under pressure, the small corrections that make a table feel held rather than managed.

At Acane, his role sits inside a restaurant that calls itself born in Cyprus and Latin America inspired. The list is curated rather than left to accumulation, built to meet a menu of grilled meats, shareable starters, chicken souvla, aquachile, and mini burgers. Neofytidis has described sommeliers as the “chefs” of the wine world, people who design wine lists, tasting flights, and curated experiences for pleasure and discovery. At this address, that comparison has weight. The pass sends flame and fat. The wine program must bring line, lift, and temperature.

A Parrilla in full view

The Spanish Parrilla grill gives Acane its central gesture. Cooks work in the open, preparing grilled meats and other dishes where the room can see the method rather than simply receive the plate. The restaurant pairs that fire with a modern, wide-ranging kitchen: Latin American influence, Cypriot warmth, Mexican and Bolivian notes, plus sous vide preparations that move from controlled cooking to open flame.

This is not a tasting-menu room. The format is à la carte and small plates, which puts rhythm in the hands of the table and the pass. Starters are built to share. Aquachile brings freshness and bite. Chicken souvla carries the local thread into the grill program. Mini burgers, praised for flavor and presentation, sit beside steaks cooked in front of the room. The structure asks the wine station to think in sequences rather than single pairings: a glass that can move from citrus and chile to char, another that can stand beside smoke without becoming heavy.

Wood, stone, plants, flame

The room works close to the kitchen. Contemporary wood and stone surfaces, indoor plants, and careful tableware give the dining room its texture, but the Parrilla holds the eye. The sound is lively, the atmosphere built for groups as much as pairs, with plates moving across the table and the grill keeping its own pace.

Acane belongs to the team behind Dionysus Mansion, and that connection gives the house a local hospitality line without turning it into a copy of its sibling. The Pareklisia Tourist Area address places it inside Limassol’s coastal flow, but the stronger location is bench-side: near enough to the open kitchen to read the work as it happens. Fire is the room’s clock.

The pour after the smoke

The restaurant has expanded its early presence quickly, with press attention and guest response gathering around the grill, the atmosphere, and the breadth of the menu. At Acane, the wine program answers a kitchen built on heat, acid, and shared plates.

For Neofytidis, that means composition at the table, not performance for its own sake. The next glass has to make sense after the aquachile, before the chicken souvla, and beside the Parrilla at Acane.