St Barts Trip Report: April 22 - 29

by Bob

In 1919, Lincoln Steffens returned from a trip to Russia and wrote “I have seen the future, and it works.” After a number of trips to St. Barths over the past several months in connection with the book Kara and I are writing about the restaurants on the island, I am of the opposite opinion. While St. Barths, with its chic and fashionable air and many modern conveniences can hardly be viewed as the island that time forgot, day-to-day life there is conducted according to a set of values that are in such short supply these days that they are viewed as old-fashioned. And they work.

What a thrill it has been for Kara and me to have an excuse to spend several weeks this winter basking not only in the warmth of St. Barths but in the hospitality and kindness of its residents. It has also given us the opportunity to meet many of the people who hang out on SBH Online including the crowd who showed up for our cocktail party in January, Digger and Bridgette, Lance and Libby, Deb Tor and Roger, and most recently Abbie Hoffman (who looks much better than she did during the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago :-) ) and her husband and friends. Sadly, we had to reschedule a trip in April and therefore missed catching up with GayleR and Michael, StevenH, as well as the chance to attend a seder dinner with Skateboard Phil and his family. We take comfort, however, in the knowledge that we will all be making many return trips to St. Barths in the future during which our paths are sure to cross.

Our book presently encompasses 18 restaurants and over 70 recipes. In a past trip report, I wrote about Eddy Stackelborough, Andy Hall and the three owners of L’Esprit de Saline: Christophe, Guillaume and the chef, JC. Since that time, we have had the privilege of spending time and working with a host of other restaurant owners and chefs. While the list is too long to discuss at length here, a few examples will illustrate why our travels around St. Barths have been so pleasant and memorable.

Take, for example, Nadine Labau who, with her husband Georges, owns Le Lafayette Club on Grand Cul de Sac. Notwithstanding Le Lafayette Club's well established reputation as one of the most desirable places on St. Barths to eat lunch, she welcomed us and the idea of our book enthusiastically and was extremely generous both with her time as well as the restaurant's famed Pina Coladas, and she radiated pure joy as she recalled her life on St. Barths with Georges over the past 25 years. Then there is Hubert at Trois Forces, who described standing below decks in a cruise ship on which he worked as a chef as it was moored in the harbor in Gustavia in the late 1970's, looking out the window as he was polishing silverware, mesmerized by the light and mountains, and deciding on the spot that he had to live on the island. We also met the lovely Maryse Berry, the owner of Le Gommier in Saline, who offered us her amitie and said she would always be delighted to receive us in her wonderful restaurant. Franck and Denis, the owners of Wall House, which is justly earning a reputation as one of the best restaurants on the island offering inspired cuisine at almost unbelievably reasonable prices, regaled us with stories about the challenges of opening a restaurant in the Caribbean after years of operating a very successful restaurant in a ski area in France and laughed easily and frequently about initial disasters like building a barbecue pit only to reduce their customers to tears as the smoke wafted throughout the dining room. After years of loving the food at Do Brazil and La Mandela, we had the pleasure of getting to know Boubou and his chef Kiki, who is recognized by everyone in the St. Barths’ restaurant world as one of the most outstanding chefs on the island. Boubou and Kiki form one of the closest, most successful and longest-lasting owner / chef teams on the island. Boubou's creative energy, which appears to know no bounds, is balanced perfectly by Kiki's quiet but intense passion for cooking and attention to detail, and the combination makes dining at both restaurants one of the highlights of any trip to St. Barths. We also spent several happy hours in the beautiful confines of The Eden Rock Hotel and its three restaurants and in the very pleasant and hospitable company of its owners, David and Jane Matthews, its General Manager, Pamela Parker (who is Jane's sister), and its justly renowned chef Jean Claude Dufore who prepared 12 dishes for our book-- four each for The Rock, the Tapas Bar and The Sand Bar. There is a creative aura about Jean Claude which is palpable, and we watched transfixed as he produced plate after plate of food all of which would have been suitable for the cover of Gourmet Magazine. And lastly, there was the opportunity to get to know old friends better like Annie at La Langouste, Adam at Le Sapotillier, and Francois Beret at Francois Plantation whose enthusiasm for their restaurants is unabated after working for over 20 years each in the St. Barths culinary world. Indeed, despite being one of the earliest pioneers on the St. Barths cooking scene, Francois Beret still retains the drive and energy to reinvent the menu at the famed Francois Plantation for the 2003-04 season to make it lighter and more varied paring a wide selection of international wines with a tasting menu of cuisines from around the world. He is also doing a dramatic redesign of the interior of the restaurant which will now boast a wine bar and casual and informal seating.

As always, however, the real charm of St. Barths is revealed in the little details and casual asides in conversations. We met Ellen Lampert-Greaux for the first time as well as her husband Rosemond Greaux, who organize the St. Barths Film Festival-- a showcase of films made in the Caribbean. At Ellen's invitation, we attended a terrific film called “Salsa” which chronicled the career of a young French classically-trained pianist who was infatuated with Cuban music. We arrived for the movie at the appointed hour at the tennis court in Lorient and were instructed by Ellen to grab a couple of plastic chairs from a large stack on the side of the court and make ourselves comfortable. Ellen also explained that in the event of rain, we were to stand and hold the chairs above our heads which would not only keep us dry but the seats of the chairs as well when the shower passed and we were able to sit down again. Trust me, the megaplexes in the U.S. with stadium seating and Dolby Surround Sound have nothing on the Lorient tennis court where we were able to enjoy our movie without interruption by the elements, cooled by ocean breezes under a star-filled sky. We also learned more about Boubou's Music Festival which is held every year in August and has grown in a few short years from approximately 20 – 25 musicians to over 140 this year. Boubou estimates that over 2,500 people will come to the island for the Festival this summer and notes that he doesn’t start his concerts until 10:00 p.m. so as to avoid cutting into the business for other island restaurants. Eddy Stackelborough related a story about someone suggesting to his father Marius, the owner of Le Select, that he sell ice cream at the bar which Marius declined to do because he did not want to hurt the business of the woman who owns the creperie around the corner and also sells ice cream. Similarly, Pamela Parker at Eden Rock noted that the hotel has made a point of not offering meal plans to its guests to encourage them to venture out and patronize the other island restaurants in addition to those at Eden Rock. Christophe, Guillaume and JC at L’Esprit explained that they close for three months each year-- in June during which they make their annual pilgrimage to New York City to sample its many fine restaurants and scour bookstores for additions to their extensive cookbook collection, and in September and October so as not to lose sight of why they came to St. Barths in the first place which was to enjoy life and to indulge their passions for surfing and sailing. With a candor and openness which is so characteristic of the island, they told us there were 18 places to surf on St. Barths including their secret spot which, without prying by us, they freely disclosed. And, as always, despite the fact that there are many restaurant owners and chefs working very hard to make a living on St. Barths, we didn’t hear a single negative comment by anyone about another restaurant. To the contrary, when we mentioned various restaurants we were interviewing for the book, we were showered with testimonials about how great the other restaurants were as well as the talents of the various chefs.

St. Barths is living proof therefore of what the world came to understand about the Soviet Union and communism in general-- Lincoln Steffens’ early effusions notwithstanding: the good life cannot be achieved via a blueprint or master plan which is managed by a huge central bureaucracy. It is to be found instead in places where people are given the freedom and independence to pursue their dreams and where they act and treat one another with honesty, decency and kindness.

 

Return to a List of St. Barths Trip Reports