devouring st.

martin
O n e man o n a missio n to eat his way  from shore to scrumptious shore

On the French side of

St. Martin, Orient Beach
offers diners everything
from snack stands and
sandy beach bars to chic,
Euro-hip watering holes
and romantic bistros.

5 4   c a r i b b e a n t r av e l+l i f e    c a r i b b e a n t r av e l m a g . c o m A pril 2010 c a r i b b e a n t r av e l+l i f e   5 5

 story by Bob Morris photography by peter frank edwards

Orient Beach, on St. Martin, is your quintessential Caribbean

postcard — frothy blue waves propelled by the offshore breeze, the
soundtrack of reggae and soca alternating with the beach bars you
walk past, and bodies basting on lounge chairs, their inhabitants
recovering from a night at the casino or gearing up for a marathon tour
of the duty-free shops. But I have come to St. Martin to indulge a
different vice — not to gamble, not to shop, not to stretch myself
out on its beaches: I have come to eat, and eat seriously. Clockwise from above
There’s no shortage of options. A gantlet of chalkboard mar- left: Finish a meal in
Grand Case with a
quees touts the offerings: Prime rib au jus, steak frites, steamed crepe; heady spices at
mussels, cheeseburgers and, most curiously, in this home ground the Marigot market;
of tasty, spiny Caribbean crustaceans, lobsters flown in from idling under a sea grape
tree at Grand Case
Maine. All delicious, I’m sure, but it’s anywhere food. Not for me. Beach Club; succulent
Instead, I zero in on a cluster of big tents at the west end of the chicken sizzles at a lolo.
beach, far from the tanning crowd. A ribbon of smoke wafts up Opposite: Strolling off
supper on Orient beach.
from the middle, and where there’s smoke, there’s possibility.
A 15-minute walk finds me chatting up a trio of men drink-
ing Presidente beer in the shade of a tarp. It’s a Friday, and they
represent the advance guard of a group of 60 or 70 government
employees from the Dutch side of the island, sent here to set up
for a weekend camping trip.
“It’s a bonding thing,” says one of the men, David Lejuez.
“People who eat together work better together.”
That Lejuez and his co-workers are burly, well-fed men bodes
well. But what bodes best of all are the extreme lengths to which
they have gone on behalf of cooking. No mere assortment of grills
and ice chests for them; these guys have hammered together big
sheets of plywood to create a 20-by-10, three-sided beachfront
kitchen complete with a roof and a floor and a broad window for
gazing out at the sea while they cook. They have hauled in a bat-
tery of gas stoves and big refrigerators powered by generators that
are hidden behind the dunes.
More men are working inside the kitchen, and there’s the
sound of cleavers whacking against cutting boards. I see tall pots
steaming on the stoves. I smell onions and pepper and garlic.
I hear the sizzle of meat over fire. I don’t know what they are

5 6  57
 cooking. I know only that I want some. Japanese, American steakhouses, fusion this or fusion that — St.
My lust is not lost on Lejuez. He reaches into a cooler, pulls out Martin is the place.
a Presidente and hands it to me. He points to a chair. But my juices are stirred by the knowledge that this island
“Sit,” he says. “You must eat with us.” of about 75,000 residents (some 39,000 on the Dutch side and
He’s right. I must. 36,000 on the French) is made up of 140 different nationalities.
For the next hour, the cooks go about their business in the It’s a serious mash-up of cultures, and that manifests itself in
makeshift kitchen. The aromas grow more enticing. The beer is some seriously glorious local food. Call it Creole, call it island
replaced by ti punch, the trademark cocktail of the French West traditional, call it what you will. Just know that it is served on
Indies, made from rhum agricole (rum distilled from raw cane St. Martin in a fashion found nowhere else.
syrup instead of molasses), sweet cane juice and lime. It’s, uh, And there is no better place to start sampling it than the Satur-
Scenes from a medicinal, but it prepares my palate and constitution for the food day morning market along the waterfront in Marigot. By the time
small island: that soon comes my way. Things start off with a bowlful of fish I arrive, shortly before 8 a.m., there are already throngs of people
Bright signs, full
plates, smiling soup, a peppery broth afloat with big chunks of triggerfish, what swarming around Anguillan fishermen, who are selling catches of
faces and natural the locals call ole wife. Then comes a plate heaped with tangy pork yellowtail snapper, mahimahi and king mackerel. Customers are
beauty create a ribs and grilled chicken, rice ’n’ peas, and a green salad slathered lined up three deep at the lobster stand. Vendors hawk freshly
mouthwatering
kaleidoscope in dressing. slaughtered goat and bread and a bounty of spices.
on St. Martin. It’s more — much more — than I I make my way to Miss Ebby’s,
bargained for. where the eponymous proprietor,
Lejuez flashes a smile at my over- a slender, sweet-faced lady with
flowing plate. a Creole-plaid kerchief tied tight
this island of “Welcome to St. Martin,” he against her head, is behind the
says. counter cooking homemade blood
about 75,000 sausage in a skillet while her daugh-

B
residents is made y o fficial g o v e r n - ter sells coconut tarts. Bottles line
ment estimate, there are the counter, filled with amber liquid
up of 140 different some 300 restaurants on and sealed with what looks like a
nationalities. the dual-nation isle of St. white meringue. It’s mauby, a sweet,
Martin. But drive a lap around the fizzy drink made from the bark of a
It’s a serious 37-square-mile island — something tree in the buckthorn family that is
mash-up of cultures, easily accomplished in a couple of native to the islands. Boil the bark
hours — and you can’t help but in water, toss in some brown sugar
and that manifests conclude that the census is way, and spices (everyone has a secret
itself in some way low. From swank, glittery res- blend), and let the brewing process
taurants that would fit the mix in take its course. When fermentation
seriously glorious Las Vegas or New York to charm- is complete, the white meringue
local food. drenched Parisian-style bistros,
Mauby, a gently alcholic homebrew,
foams up and seals the bottle. The
waterfront fish houses, strip-mall percentage of alcohol in mauby is
contains herbs that help settle the
cafés and guys manning grills along stomachs of grateful gastroadventurers. so low that mothers often give it to
the roadside, you can’t swing a fresh their babies at nap time — you can
baguette here without hitting a chug it and barely get a buzz.
place that sells food of some kind. If ever there were an island “Here, take,” says Miss Ebby, handing me a chilled bottle and
wholly devoted to eating, this is it. This profusion of food is not refusing to accept my money. “It is my pleasure to introduce
the result of natural circumstance. Unlike some Caribbean culi- you. It is the best way to start a day. It settles the stomach for
nary destinations blessed with rich soil and diverse agriculture all that will follow.”
— Trinidad and Jamaica come to mind — St. Martin is relatively I take a few pre-emptive sips as I head for my primary desti-
arid and largely deforested. Farmers grow watermelons and some nation at the market — the lolos. That’s what islanders call the
ground provisions, and that’s about it. The trump card is a mod- collection of small side-by-side eateries, primarily in Marigot and
ern international airport well served by lots of direct flights from Grand Case, that specialize in traditional island fare. Despite my
Europe and the United States. “So chefs here lack for nothing,” many inquiries about the origins of the name, I never get a defini-
says Pascal Narme, owner and chef of L’Auberge Gourmande in tive answer as to what lolo really means. Some tell me it derives
Grand Case, one of the island’s most acclaimed French restau- from the “low, low” prices they charge for meals. Others tell me it
rants. “What was in the market in Paris in the morning can be is a corruption of the “local” food they serve. And still others tell
here in the afternoon and on the table that night.” me it stems from the fact that most of them are run by females
This cornucopian airlift, along with the hankering of many and the French slang for a woman’s breasts is lolos.
classically trained chefs to ply their trade in warm climes, means Doesn’t matter. Just know that your American dollars go a long
that if you are looking for the Caribbean’s highest concentra- way at a lolo, where you have to work hard to spend more than $25
tion of good restaurants — be they French or Italian, Indian or on a meal for two. What sweetens the deal is that most lolos trade

5 8  59
Dusk brings a rare
quiet moment to
one of many Grand
Case lolos, as the
chef prepares for
the evening rush.

6 0  61
euros for dollars evenly. Meaning a meal advertised on the menu
for 10 euros can be yours for $10, which translates to a 3-buck sav-
ings at current exchange rates — that takes a bit of the sting out of
our economic miasma. Plus, the food is consistently tasty, even if
it’s pretty much the same from place to place. In the evenings, it’s
grilled ribs and chicken, maybe some fish, either grilled or stewed.
For sides, it’s a variation on a theme of rice ’n’ pigeon peas, mac
’n’ cheese and coleslaw, although it’s not unusual to find grilled
eggplant or christophene gratin.
“We each give it our special touch,” a waitress at Sky’s the
Limit, a lolo in Grand Case, tells me. “Everyone has their own
favorite place that they are loyal to, depending on how they like
their flavors.”
For breakfast at lolo central in Marigot, I head for Enoch’s
Place, where Enoch Hodge holds court in the kitchen, assisted
by his daughter, Talia, and a small legion of women busily taking
orders and tending to tables. My day-starter is a whole grilled
snapper with rice ’n’ peas, accompanied by a couple of Hodge’s
fresh-from-the-fryer johnnycakes. When I’m sated, the waitress
brings out a small plastic tub filled with soapy water and gives
me a towel for washing my hands.
“That’s my special touch,” Hodge tells me after the morn-
ing rush subsides. He started off 20 years ago cooking out of a
truck at construction sites and then launched Enoch’s Place
in 1996. A few years ago, he opened a full-fledged restaurant,
the Bridge, in Sandy Ground, with a broader offering of Creole
6 2  63
specialties. “You start small and let your love for food carry you
through,” he says.
Hodge’s story is one I hear time and again as I make my way
around the island seeking out memorable local meals. Origi-
nally from Dominica, the delightful Numerly Bruney got started
serving meals out of her station wagon. Now she runs Numerly’s
Kitchen, one of the island’s roadside standouts, from a glorified
trailer kitchen by the lagoon on Pondfill Road, in Philipsburg.
Numerly’s is not a place for the timid, but for those adventurous
enough to try such authentic breakfast stalwarts as pig’s foot
souse (a hot soup boiled down from fatty trotters) or cow skin
(pickled in a brine with lots of salt and onions), the rewards are
many. My favorite meal at Numerly’s is a lunch of braised goat
and fungi — okra stewed with fine cornmeal until it achieves an
almost soufflé-like consistency.
Another perennial favorite among islanders is Yvette’s Restau-
rant, which operates out of a small home on a side street in French
Quarter. Yvette Hyman, yet another island chef who built up a
clientele by serving food from her car, started off with just three
tables in 1983. Three additions later, the restaurant now seats 50
or 60 people, and most nights in season, it’s full of a lively mix
of locals and patrons who’ve been visiting St. Martin for years.
Hyman passed away in 1999, but her extended family carries on in
her behalf. Husband Felix, a veteran chef at several hotels around
the island, oversees the kitchen, sticking to the exact same menu
his wife started 27 years ago. The house specialty is a lush and
peppery conch ’n’ dumplings. Yvette’s daughter Josephine and
granddaughter Tjamarlie hold down waitress duties.
“If things get really busy, we have cousins who live next door,
Clockwise from above
and they come in to help,” says Yvette’s son, Bobby Daal, the left: Pinel Island offers
maitre d’. sand, sun and alfresco
dining; Surinamese
O
cooking at Déjà Vu; sun-
n my last ni g ht in S t. M a r tin , I h e ad back set on Grand Case; mahi-
to French Quarter and Poulet d’Orleans, where chef mahi at Poulet d’Orleans,
Tony Romney runs a largely solo operation out of the which chef Tony Romney
(opposite) runs out of
same house where he grew up, a quaint gingerbread his childhood home.
affair with a rooster weather vane atop the roof. He apologizes
for being short of staff.
“Used to be my children would wait tables and help out. But,”
he shrugs, “they grew up on me.”
Still, there’s no downside to the food that rolls out in leisurely
fashion over the next couple of hours. Romney, one of nine chil-
dren, learned to cook from his mother, who, he swears, never made
the same meal twice. “She always kept it fresh and interesting,
and that’s my way too,” he says. He cooked in kitchens from Napa
Valley, California, to New Orleans before returning to St. Martin,
and he draws from a multitude of influences to create his unique
riffs on island specialties.
Plates arrive bearing codfish accras (fritters) and spicy crab
backs, followed by boudin noir (blood sausage) and boudin blanc,
made from conch, along with stuffed mushrooms and garlic bread.
I’m quite prepared to call it a meal, but then come more plates —
chicken in peanut sauce, chicken in creole sauce, mahimahi with
lemon-garlic sauce, plus rice and potatoes and beans.
My eyes glazed over, Chef Romney gives me a look.
“I thought you came here to eat, mon,” he says.
I take a deep breath and dig in. ✸