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6. Even if you're renting a villa, you'll want to dine out, too -- especially on St. Barts. A short list of St. Barts' best restaurants has to include...
- Le Gaiac at Hotel Le Toiny, a just-renovated Michelin-starred destination gastronomique atop a mountain with killer views, plus a picture window offering views of the kitchen.
- Bonito Saint Barth, which offers high-concept ceviche and tiraditos as well as chef-crafted main courses on a terrace overlooking Gustavia.
- Sand Bar (daytime) and On the Rocks (dinner) at Eden Rock, where the new star chef – Jean-Georges Vongerichten, no less – knocked my socks off with black truffle pizza and French-Asian fusion dishes (below: multicultural mahi-mahi).
The elegant Hotel Saint-Barth Isle de France's restaurant, La case de l'Isle, serves up yet more world-class fusion cuisine on a terrace overlooking Anse des Flamand, the most perfect beach on the island, if not the entire Caribbean.
7. St. Barts' most overrated restaurants? Beats me. The dining on this island is so over-the-top superb that even Nikki Beach St. Barths (top), which presents itself as more of a Riviera-style cafe than a temple of gastronomy, serves a salade Nicoise that is so inventive and delicious, you might almost forget how beautiful the waitresses are. Almost.
8. Best deal on St. Barts: Food and restaurants are expensive, but there's a supermarket a mile or so east of Eden Rock called L'Oasis that sells heroes stuffed with meat, cheese, and sliced hard-boiled egg for about $5.00 -- and they're fabulous.
9. Best Club on St. Barts: Le Ti St-Barth, bien sûr. It's a restaurant, a club. It's retro, it's courant. It's straight, it's gay. It's DJs, fashion shows, cabaret, showgirls (below). Above all, it's a party.
10. Best reggae bar on St. Barts? That's a little like asking for the best Irish pub in Cuzco. There isn't much in the way of black Caribbean culture on St. Barts because the island never had enough rainfall to support sugar cane plantations -- ergo, this is one island that didn't import a lot of Africans as slaves. When I asked Aymeric Bourdin, Assistant General Manager at TomBeachHotel, where his live bands come from, he said, “North America and Europe.” They're good, too. But no, they do not play "Yellow Bird."
For more information visit the St. Barts Tourism Committee site.
Top and middle photos by Ed Wetschler; third image courtesy of Le Ti St-Barth.
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