- The Guardian
8 Tuesday 30 July 2019
T here’s nowhere
to buy a bucket and spade, but you
can pick up a €10,000 (£ 9,000)
Gucci handbag or a €250,000 piece of
graffi ti art. This strip of sand, on the
south-west coast of the Greek island
of Mykonos, is no ordinary beach.
“Ha ha, no,” says Anna, a smartly
dressed hostess welcoming guests
to Nammos beach club, when I pop
by to ask if there is anywhere to buy
a lilo or other traditional seaside
paraphernalia. “Our clients aren’t
usually those sorts of people.”
Nammos is a destination of choicefor some of the world’s wealthiest
and most famous people – from
Kate Moss, Lindsay Lohan and
Ariana Grande to Philip Green,
Wayne Rooney and Usain Bolt.
Their spending has upended the
local community, transforming
it from a fi shing village into
“Kings Road-on-Sea”.
Anna says that, unfortunately,
I can’t stop in for dinner, as bookings
are required weeks in advance. It’s
probably for the best, as a plate of
sea bass sashimi would have set
me back €200. An attempt to have
a beer at the bar – where, without
exception, all the customers, young
and old, are dancing on the tables
to thumping R&B – is thwarted by
a team of six security guards in black
polo shirts and shorts.
George, one of the guards,
explains that only those who havefollowers are frequently treated to
shots of her in swimwear in exactly
this sort of location. On her table,
adjacent to the one she is dancing
on, are 34 bottles of Veuve Clicquot
champagne. Each bottle of VC, as
the clientele refer to it, costs €1,000.
Grimmond declines to speak to me.
In 2017, the one-time-billionaire
Green was caught on Instagram
at Nammos smashing plates and
spraying champagne with the
property tycoon Robert Tchenguiz,
the Kardashian matriarch Kris Jenner
and the US designer Tommy Hilfi ger.
Green’s Nammos partying came
soon after BHS, the department store
he sold to a former bankrupt for £1,
collapsed with the loss of 11,000 jobs.
Others papped at the bar or
included in the 113-page Nammos
magazine include Lewis Hamilton,
the models Bella Hadid and Heidibooked a table are allowed to join the
party. “It’s like a normal restaurant
until 6pm,” he says. “Then the
party starts, every night. People
spend huge amounts – €50,000 to
€100,000 isn’t unusual.”
That’s more than George, who
is from Athens and is on Mykonos
for the summer, sharing a small
apartment with fi ve other seasonal
workers, will make in 10 seasons.
George’s job is to prevent anyone
who hasn’t shelled out from joining
the party, and to keep those enjoying
themselves from unwanted attention.
But attracting attention and fl aunting
wealth appears to be one of the main
reasons to visit Nammos, which sits
on Psarou Bay, a 15-minute drive
south of Mykonos town.
Tonight, George is guarding
the YouTuber and infl uencer Shani
Grimmond , whose 1.4 millionThe Greek island
of Mykonos has
long attracted a
glamorous clique,
but an infl ux of
billionaires has
transformed it into
a haven of absurd
luxur y, writes
Rupert Neate
The spend zone
Jackie Kennedy
visits Mykonos in
1961 (left); Nicole
Scherzinger at
Nammos in 2015Nammos
beach on
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