Two for Tapas – new restaurants in Barbados

Two new restaurants, one on the South Coast and the other in the thick of the action on the West Coast of Barbados, have opened recently and become hotspots for the season. They have gone for a ‘light’ formula. While sushi and tapas have been available over the years in Barbados, these two new restaurants have revamped the theme of small eats on the island.

Nishi is right on the corner in Holetown. Set on the site the old Olives, which sadly closed in 2009 after many years of lively service, the new restaurant offers bistro and sushi. Nishi’s owners have completely redecorated, in a new colour scheme of burnt orange and pale grey. The dining room upstairs is now enclosed and has a menu of sushi and sashimi. Downstairs is the bistro, which serves a mix of Caribbean and international dishes. Their very pretty courtyard contains the bar, where it is possible to eat outside as well.

Tapas has opened on the site of the former Aqua restaurant, which has a cracking setting overlooking the boardwalk on the South Coast. Their chosen style, as the name would suggest, is tapas, and among the general tapas there is a good range of seafood, including mussels and eel as well as the regular calamari. Tapas is owned by three Italians, including Franco Parisi, who until recently was chef at the Lone Star.

Other spots around the island where you can get sushi include Café Luna at Little Arches Hotel, Zen at Crane Beach and at Fusion in Accra. For tapas you can try Scarlet on the West Coast.

For more information about where to eat on the island, see our Definitive Guide to Barbados Restaurants.

Sentebale Polo Cup, Apes Hill, Barbados, 31 January 2010

On the last Sunday of this month Barbados will host an international polo tournament with a difference. Teams will be competing for the Sentebale Polo Cup, which has been created in order to benefit Sentebale, the charity for disadvantaged African children. The tournament is backed by Prince Harry and Prince Seeiso of Lesotho, who are patrons of the charity and who will be there in person. Prince Harry will be playing for the Sentebale team.

The charity, which was set up by the two princes in memory of their mothers, aims to help orphans and vulnerable children in Lesotho, those whose lives have been affected by poverty and particularly by HIV/Aids. The charity has managed to help over 3000 children so far and they wish to continue the good work. The Sunday 31 polo match is the first of what is hoped will be an annual fundraiser.

The aim of the Sentebale Polo Cup is not only to increase awareness of the plight of these children, but to raise vital funds so Sentebale can increase its help to those most in need and very often forgotten.

The idea is that the tournament will tour the world over the coming years. The inaugural event will be held at the Apes Hill polo ground in St James the middle of the island. Apes Hill itself is a development of villas around the polo field.

Polo itself has become increasingly popular as a spectator sport in Barbados and in the way of the island - there is always a lively, informal crowd - attending a polo match is a fun day out. The day opens at 10.30am, with special activities for children, and the sporting activity will be in the afternoon, starting at 2pm with a plate match sponsored by the Barbados Tourism Authority, after which the main event, the Sentebale cup match, will take place at 3pm.

Admission is Bds$50 (around £15), tel +1246 422 3147. Children under 5 go in for free. For more information, see the Sentebale website. For more information about sports on the island, see the Definitive Caribbean Guide to Barbados.

Temenos Golf Club Has Re-opened

Just before Christmas 2009 Temenos Golf Club on Anguilla re-opened. The par 72, 7063 yard course – the only one on Anguilla - was opened by Cap Juluca, the Anguillian resort, on 19 December.

Set in the west of the island, close to most of the resorts, the course, which was designed by Greg Norman and opened in 2006, sits on slightly sloping ground that falls away to the south coast. The shape of the land gives some lovely views from the open spaces of the fairways - five miles across to St Martin, which sits hazily green in the incredibly strong blue of the tropical sky. The sun is hot and strong, glancing off the crests of the swell between the two islands. It’s a spectacular
setting.

And the fairways are relatively open spaces. Or that’s what they say… Wide they may be, but they are not easy on ‘erratic’ players, as no two of them run parallel without scrub in between. Go even slightly off course and you’re in the rough, which is an unholy mix of sea grape, thatch palm, tamarind and neem tree. And loblolly – which is what you’ll be doing if you go in there. And then there are the ‘water features’.

Thirteen of the holes follow or cross water, particularly on the back nine. You have to be deft to pick your way through them... There’s a challenge, anyway.

Fir more information about the hotel, please see our Definitive Caribbean Guide to Cap Juluca.

For more information about the island, please see our Definitive Caribbean Guide to Anguilla.

The Standpipe, January 2010 - The DC Newsletter

The Winter 2010 edition of The Standpipe has just been published.

For those of you who don’t know The Standpipe, it is Definitive Caribbean’s quarterly newsletter. If you have an interest in the Caribbean there’s sure to be something in it for you. We cover news and chat about the islands - about new openings and refurbishments, that sort of thing – and then there are also interviews, stories and recipes too.

This early 2010 edition has written and video interviews with Gary Thulander, the GM of Cap Juluca, a story about hiking in St Vincent and a recipe from the Hermitage in Nevis. The Standpipe also has a regular Photo Essay - this quarter we got hold of some cracking images of Trinidad carnival, which is surely one of the liveliest, most fantastic festivals anywhere in the world.

So if you want to catch up on the latest Caribbean information, and have a bit of fun too, then go to The Standpipe. And if you enjoy it you can subscribe easily enough, right there at the top there.

Happy Travels - Definitive Caribbean


By the way, if you’re wondering why our newsletter is called The Standpipe, that’ll be because the standpipe, the source of running water for many West Indians until not that long ago, was also the centre of village gossip… So, for the best news, come meet us at The Standpipe...

Be a Tobagonian for a Week and Win a Holiday For Four

Here’s a bit of fun. If you enjoy playing around with video, particularly making comedy, and you dream of the Caribbean, then you could win yourself a week’s holiday on Tobago (UK residents only I am afraid).

To start off 2010 with a laugh, the Tobago Hotel and Tourism Association has launched a competition called ‘Be a Tobagonian for a Week’, in which you have to produce a video explaining your dreams about Tobago and what you would do there - whether you’d like to be scuba diving on the island’s reefs, walking in the rainforest, or just liming (chilling out with a rum punch in hand).



The spec is one minute max and as fun and comic as you can make it. You send it in and they’ll put it live on their YouTube Channel - Tobago Time, where it can be judged. The ever helpful (and clearly eccentric) Duane Kenny of Stonehaven Villas has put together a few examples of what you might say, but he clearly has the advantage of Tobago itself as a backdrop.

British entrants might have to be a bit creative… Perhaps you’ll find yourself in your tropical shirt in the wintry uplands of the Lake District, or making merry with a string band on the seafront in Blackpool in January…

All entries must be submitted by 18 March 2010. The best video (judged on originality, comic value and creativity among other things) wins a stay in Tobago for a week for four people, sponsored by Golden Holidays, including return flights from the UK, accommodation and tours while on island. The winner will be announced on 20 May 2010.

And when they make it on island, the winners will be asked to produce a video diary of their holiday. More fun then…

See the Tobago Time Youtube channel and competition rules on the Tobago Hotel and Tourism Association website.

New Year’s Eve – or is that Old Year’s Night? – on the Wild Side (of Barbados)

For many years it has been a tradition among young Bajans, after the West Coast parties on New Year’s Eve - or Old Year’s Night, of course, as they know it in Barbados - to make their escape to the east coast to catch the dawn and sunrise over the Atlantic Ocean.

But what if you were over there already? It’s certainly a possibility. There is a good new place to stay on the Atlantic side. In early December the Atlantis Hotel in Bathsheba re-opened after extensive refurbishment. Backed by the people who created Little Good Harbour outside Speightstown, the Atlantis should certainly make its mark as a stylish getaway in an unexpected part of the island.

And the Atlantis will be holding an Old Year’s Night party. It will be laying on a meal and drinks and a DJ who will play Old School hits. Ok, not so wild – and the guests might not still be awake at dawn - but there will certainly be breakfast and a hair of the dog with a cracking view - with the morning sun glancing off the sea swell.

And if you don’t quite make it for a New Year breakfast, then the Atlantis is well worth a stopover on a tour of Barbados, which every visitor should do during a trip. Perhaps go for the Sunday buffet lunch (for which the Atlantis was known in its previous incarnation) – which has already got the thumbs up from friends on their Facebook page. With the guys from the Fish Pot at the helm it is bound to be worth including in a trip this season.

For more information, see the Definitive Caribbean Review of Barbados Boutique Hotels.

A Merry Caribbean Christmas

As we look forward to a break for Christmas (well, except for our partners in the Caribbean, who can expect their workload to increase with the Christmas visitors, of course), we thought we would share our Christmas card with you. And for a bit of sunny Caribbean fun, see below.

Merry Christmas from all of us at Definitive Caribbean.



Here’s a Merry Christmas in the dancehalls of Jamaica – /Great Tidings from Natty Dread!/ - courtesy of Mike Dread TV and Jacob Miller.

The SandBar - Anguilla Beach Bar

Opening in time for this season in Anguilla is the Sandbar, a different type of beach bar in an island that pretty much specialises in beach bars. Set on Sandy Ground, one of the island’s liveliest beaches, the Sandbar is not the simple wooden hut that you might normally expect of Anguilla. Instead it is in a former house among the palms and has a rather different feel. It is more of a lounge, with upholstered seats around the bar as well as some attractive wooden chairs and tables on the sand at the front.

And it is different in atmosphere too. Instead of the regular beer or rum and simple food, the SandBar serves cocktails wine and also tapas. So, while you take in the Anguilla sunset you can share:

Chilled, roasted vegetables with white balsamic syrup and a goat cheese dip, pork wontons with a passion fruit hot sauce or a red cooked duck and savoury pancake with mango chutney.

The Sandbar has been created by Denise Carr, formerly the executive chef of Cuisinart. Originally from Alberta in Canada, she has worked in California and Dubai. Then she came to Anguilla and worked at Cuisinart for three years. She opened up the SandBar in late 2009. With its extremely wealthy clientele, many of whom know the sophistication of St Barths, there was certainly room for a spot where they could kick off the docksiders but still enjoy top wine and food.

That said, for all its different atmosphere, the SandBar is by no means formal. This is Anguilla (not St Barths). And of course the activity will be much the same. Many a corsair - or is that carouser - has been wrecked on the sandbars around Anguilla. Long may it continue.

For more information about Sandbar, join their Facebook Fan Page.

For more information about Anguilla, see the Definitive Caribbean Guide to Anguilla

Indigo, a new Tapas bar at Montpelier Plantation

Montpelier, the delightful boutique hotel in Nevis, has just opened a new tapas restaurant for the coming season. Indigo is set in the open-air lounge just above the hotel’s pool and will be open on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays from 6pm to 9pm. It is the only place on the island to serve this style of elegant ‘light bight’ at the moment and so it adds a less formal option to the fine dining at Montpelier.

The menu at Indigo includes around 15 appetizer-sized starters and eight desserts, including sesame tempura shrimp, charred onion risotto with basil froth and chipotle pork tostadito, followed by a trio sorbet and/or a chocolate semifreddo. The tapas are designed both to be individual and to be shared and there is a long list of wines available by the glass, which can be chosen to accompany individual dishes of course.

Indigo will give guests of the hotel the opportunity for a lighter dinner and a change of scene, but for other visitors to the island - who should certainly include a visit to one of the plantation hotels on a trip to Nevis - it will also been an ideal reason to come and have a drink and something light to eat at dusk. The hotel is a lovely spot and it looks particularly good in the evenings.

The opening of Indigo has coincided with other changes to Montpelier. Around the pool itself the view has been opened out – the walls at either end have been removed so you can see the surrounding hills – and the murals, the scenes of Nevis surrounding the pool, have been changed. They now have a more contemporary pattern. This is in general keeping with gradual changes at the hotel, which are aimed to give it a more contemporary atmosphere all around. Finally, a spa treatment room has been created in one of the rooms and so massage services are now available to guests.

Jamaican Slang and Caribbean Proverbs

The West Indians have always been lyrical and laconic. And they have a lovely turn of phrase, using things that surround them to near poetic effect, even when they are cussing you out. For a bit of fun we have collected some well known West Indian expressions, proverbs and sayings. Some even make into calypsos. One which did is –

"The higher the monkey climb, the more he expose..." (or ‘the more ‘e show ‘e tail’ in Barbados)

The more you show off, the more your faults are visible to those around you, or the more successful you become, the more you are under scrutiny. But, in Jamaica -

"Monkey know which tree to climb."

The ambitious person knows where to apply their energy. And while on the subject of animals -

"Evah pig got a Saturday."

Everyone will pay for his deeds at some point. And -

"Horse dead and cow fat..." In a long story it is used in the sense of ‘and so on and so forth’.

And then you add

"...and donkey maugre."

For islanders there is particular significance in -

"De sea ain't got nuh back door."

The sea is not a safe place so you need to take precautions. And the Jamaicans again -

"Dem go together like batty and bench."

Two peas in a pod. It seems that crows get bad press in the Caribbean. The Trinidadians will have it that if -

"Corbeau pee on yuh"

Nothing will go right, you have a hex working on you. The Jamaicans call crows ‘John Crows’ and delight in referring to moonshine rum, distilled but completely un-aged and un-mellow, as -

"John Crow Batty"

"Well, Cheese on Bread!"

(Barbadian amazement!)