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a saint’s feastDavid Lansing takes on St. Martin, one serving of foie gras

at a time. And he also piles up his plate at the lolos.

photos by ben fink

St. Martin is the gastronomical capital of the Caribbean. That means you’ll enjoy the finest of French cuisine (without having to fly to Paris), and the finest of Caribbean sands.

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bustling street clogged with tourists and taxis in Philipsburg, on st. Maarten, looking for some-place fun for dinner, someplace island-y that serves umbrella rum drinks, yet every cafe i find has a poster in the window with a Toulouse lautrec-inspired can-can girl announcing “Le Beau-jolais Nouveau Est Arrivé” — this year’s new Beaujolais has arrived. Charming little bistros tempt me not with locally caught snapper sautéed with fiery scotch bonnet peppers, as i’d expect, but with aujourd’hui specials, chalked up on sandwich boards, of saumon aux épices creoles, gambas sautées and sole de Douvres meunière. small shops, still open in the early evening, proclaim new deliveries of Camembert and pâté. a hidden cafe down an alleyway not only makes fresh, hot crepes, but also roasts their own coffee, which they serve “style français,” as the sign says.

if it weren’t for the floral shirts, breezy sundresses and flip-flops everyone is wearing, i could be strolling around the famed latin Quarter in Paris or getting lost down the narrow streets of the Marais. and yet i’m in the Caribbean. i think. so what’s going on here?

“Monsieur must know that this island is the gastronomic capital of the Caribbean,” says French-born Joel Morand, the proprietor of l’Escargot Restaurant, one of those charming Philipsburg cafes i’ve walked past and now decide to give a try, lured largely by their chalkboard special proclaiming, “Foie gras ce soir!”

Yes, i had heard this claim of haute cuisine in the French West indies — it’s one of the reasons i came here (the others being the beaches) — but i figured it was more or less one of those fatuous chamber-of-commerce proclamations that tend to be more wishful thinking than anything else.

Unfortunately, says Joel, the restaurant is out of foie gras this evening because it is saint Martin’s day on the island. i don’t get the connection, so Joel, who wears a black tie with a bottle of wine on it, explains that saint Martin is the patron saint of foie gras. Or maybe the patron saint of goose farmers. He’s not sure. anyway, everyone has been ordering foie gras tonight. it’s been a veritable goose-liver fest. in the alsace region of France, famous for its foie gras, on the feast day of saint Martin they begin force-feeding the geese, Joel tells me. Then he smiles and says, “But here, on saint Martin’s day, we force-feed the tourists.”

instead i order a sampler plate of snails prepared seven different ways — with wild mushrooms, shallots, garlic butter, profiteroles, cherry tomatoes, red peppers and saf-fron — and a bottle of the freshly arrived Beaujolais nouveau. as Joel hurries off to get my wine, i settle in, taking notice of the plastic grapes hanging from the ceiling and the Provence-inspired mustard-colored décor. Edith Piaf is sadly singing “la Vie en Rose” when Joel comes back to open my wine. did i know, he asks as he dramatically pops the cork, that “on st. Martin, we eat more foie gras per capita than Parisians?”

“no,” i say. “it can’t be possible.”“C’est vrai.” and here he puffs out his barrel chest like, well, a stuffed goose.Joel’s quite the character. later that evening, while i enjoy profiteroles with chocolate

sauce and an espresso, Joel and his wife, sonya, dress up in costumes and put on a caba-ret show in the restaurant. They’re partial to american country-western stars. sometimes, Joel says, they dress up and perform as Kenny Rogers and dolly Parton. “But tonight it is

owner of Au Petit Cafe, Jay Pauly,

yields a drink that looks like it packs a punch. Au Petit, on the Dutch side

of the island, is the best place for a morning coffee.

if you’re looking for a seat with a view, then try Kali’s Beach Bar, which overlooks Friar’s Bay on the French side. Their special-ties are lobster and full-moon parties.

it’s odd: i’m wandering higgledy-piggledy down a

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all about Johnny Cash and June Carter.” in a soft French accent, Joel and sonya sing “Jackson.”

listen to me: if you ever get the chance, buy a ticket, fly to st. Martin and have dinner at l’Escargot some Friday night just to watch Joel and sonya sing “Jackson.” it’s better than watch-ing Parisians dance with monkeys at the Moulin Rouge in Montmartre. and every bit as louche.

perhaps you’re beginning to notice that st. Martin isn’t your typical Caribbean island. For one thing, it’s spelled two different ways: st. Mar-tin and st. Maarten. That’s because it’s part French and part dutch, though even the dual governments mean little to visitors (both sides like dollars, for in-stance). There are casinos and more duty-free shops on the southern, dutch side, but the coffee is better on the northern, French side. Other than that, you can hardly tell one side from the other. There seem to be just as many French restaurants on the dutch side of the island as on the French (but strangely no dutch restaurants on the dutch side, although there are a couple of indonesian eateries in Phil-ipsburg that serve the traditional dutch rijsttafel, or rice smorgasbord). and there are no border points, just an obelisk that says “Bienvenue en Partie Fran-çaise” on one side and “Welcome to dutch sint Maarten, n.a.” on the other. it’s all very civilized.

Which, perhaps, explains why both sides revel in foie gras, as i discover over the next several days. and not just French ex-pats like Joel. Even local chefs like to play with it. like dino Jagtiani, chef and owner of Temptation Restaurant in the dutch lowlands, on the west end of the island near the French bor-der. dino is the first chef born on st. Maarten who graduated from the Culinary institute of america. He, too, likes to serve up foie gras and does so in a playful manner, calling it “PB&J” because the way he prepares it — in a roasted peanut sauce and homemade port-wine fig jelly — gives it an inkling of a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich. He also makes an orange-and-ginger-glazed duck dish called Quack Quack l’Orange and a veal osso bucco served with shiitake mushrooms and cinnamon star anise polenta.

Of course, you can only eat so much foie gras and osso bucco, if you know what i mean. Fortunately, the perfect foil for all this haute cuisine is served up home-style at the lolos of Grand Case, a funky fishing village on the northwest shore of the island where pastel-colored creole houses, many of which have been turned into restaurants, have gingerbread fretwork. a lolo, if you don’t know, is a sort of grandiose barbecue shack, a place where you sit at picnic tables, protected from the intense sun by coverings of corrugated tin, and read the menu from a chalkboard. The lolos have odd names, like Talk of the Town and sky’s the limit, and the presentation couldn’t be simpler. You get a napkin and plastic cutlery, and your food comes on paper plates, but it’s as fine as pizza in Rome or carnitas tacos in Mexico City.

My first time at sky’s the limit, i order a little this and a little that from the owner, Emile, who has a husky voice and a gregarious smile. after i’ve given him my order, he

opposite: The crab back at Sky’s The limit is worth the trip. This page clockwise from top: orient Beach, the wine cellar at la Samanna and Jacqueline cooking at Sky’s the limit.

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Clockwise from top left: le Tastevin in

Grand Case on the French side and

one of its desserts, Bali Bar in Marigot on the French side and the streets of

pretty Grand Case.

At the Guavaberry emporium in Dutch Philipsburg, try the liqueur or the hot sauces they bottle.

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“suggests” that maybe i don’t really want french fries with my grilled fish. “Probably you meant to say rice and peas,” he says. no doubt.

“and you probably forgot you wanted some johnnycake and a little fried plantain with the ribs, just to mop things up,” he adds. and, of course, he’s right.

Then he places a bottle of spicy chien sauce in front of me and gives me a chunk of conch boudin, a sausage made from the mollusk. “For while you’re waiting for the ribs,” he says and shows me how to spread it on still-warm johnnycakes and then douse it with chien sauce.

“i make that myself,” he says. it tastes like liquid jerk and is made with olive oil, garlic, hot and sweet pepper, onions and lots of spices. “i can’t tell you what all,” he says.

Emile then brings me over a sagging plate of grilled ribs as well as some chicken and crab backs, which he creates by taking the meat out of a crab, adding some spices, breading and baking it and then stuffing it back in the shell. He hands me more of his chien sauce and tells me to just squirt it on the whole damn thing — the chicken, crab backs, ribs, everything.

“That’s the way we eat on st. Martin,” he says.There’s no rush to eating food like this. i get up once in a while to grab another beer or to

visit a bit with Emile and his wife, Jacqueline. They introduce me to just about everybody who stops by to pick up some food to go, and after a short chat, i might have another chicken leg or a bite of johnnycake, a sip of beer. God only knows how long i’ve been here, but i do notice

that the sun isn’t nearly as intense as it was when i first sat down. in fact, it’s almost dark. “it’s like eating at Grandma’s on a sunday afternoon, isn’t it?” Jacqueline asks. “Just

good comfort food and lots of time to enjoy it.”The queen of comfort food on st. Martin, however, has to be leona Wallace. leona

is the cook at Mary’s Boon Beach Plantation on simson Bay on the dutch side of the island, and she’s been there forever. Mary’s Boon is like Rick’s Café in the movie Casablanca. Eventually everyone on st. Martin seems to pass through Mary’s Boon, if not for a meal, then to have a drink and watch the sun set over one of the prettiest bays in the Caribbean. ask leona how old she is, and she’ll just laugh at you and say, “not the age it says in the book, tha’s for sure.” leona, who is as large as Bessie smith and has one of those great, round, passively sad faces that suggests she has seen just about everything, started working for Mary Pomeroy, the original owner of Mary’s Boon, 35 years ago.

There are some great stories about Mary Pomeroy, many of them apocryphal, and leona will talk about her all night if she’s of the mood. she’ll tell you how some people say Mary, like Humphrey Bogart’s character, Rick Blaine, was a spy during World War ii and got into trou-ble on another Caribbean island for her involvement in a revolution (gun running). Evidently, she was one of those isak dinesen characters, a woman always doing things that people said she shouldn’t be doing, and st. Martin ended up being her Casablanca. she was also a pilot and

The 37-square-mile island is

both French and Dutch. Take a drive outside the Dutch city of Philipsburg

and the French city of Marigot, and you

will find quiet countryside.

At Mr. Busby’s Beach Bar on the Dutch side, chase down baby-back ribs with a Carib beer. Then take ad-vantage of its loca-tion on Dawn Beach and go swimming or snorkeling.

fortunately, there’s a perfect foil for haute cuisine, served up homestyle at the lolos.

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ST. MarTin(French)

ST. MaarTen(Dutch)

Grand Case

Marigot Quartier d’Orleans

Philipsburg

Sims on Bay Lag o on

Sims on Bay

OrientBay

Oyster Pond

La Samanna

TemptationRestaurant

Mary’s Boon Beach

Plantation

St. Maarten Park

Guavaberry EmporiumPasanggrahan Royal

Guest HouseL’Escargot Restaurant

Caribbean Sea

At lant ic Oc ean

Captain Oliver’s Resort

Mount Vernon Plantation

chose to build her small inn next to the airport so she could taxi to the hotel’s front door. “Then Mary went flying one day and just disappeared,” leona says, rubbing her

arthritic knuckles. “nobody knows what happened to her. They never found her plane or anything. i felt very sad about it because she was special.” Play it again, sam.

The sun has set, and no one has bothered to turn the lights on in the bar where leona and i have been talking. in the fading light, leona sits silently at a little table, her arms folded on her lap, looking like a dark Buddha.

“You want to stay for dinner, honey?” she asks me. “What are you cooking tonight?”“What night is it?”“i believe it’s Friday.”“On Friday i fix lobster creole.”“always?”“For 35 years. That’s what Miss Mary liked,

and that’s what i fix.”While leona shuffles back to the kitchen to

start dinner, i help myself to a cocktail at the honor bar, pouring a shot of Mount Gay Rum into a glass and adding a touch of water. not my usual drink, but for some reason, it sounded soothing. drink in hand, i wander outside and sit on the sand. some Brits next to me are laughing over something, their voices carrying in the darkness the way they do.

“did you see her?” one of the women asks me.“Who? leona?”she waves her hand dismissively. “no. The

ghost of Mary Pomeroy. she likes to hang out at the bar, making sure everyone’s honest.”

“i don’t think she was there tonight,” i say.“Oh, she’s there. We saw her earlier. Bought

her a drink to keep her happy.”“Really? What does she drink?”“Mount Gay Rum and water, no ice.”

in a week’s time, i’ve slurped garlicky snails, gnawed smoky ribs and devoured bowls of briny mussels. i’ve had a niçoise salad with grilled yellowfin tuna and, of course, leona’s lobster cre-ole. There’s been foie gras made with old rum and stewed figs, foie gras with orange juice and ginger bread, and foie gras with mango and hibiscus leaves.

it’s been fabulous. But i’ve intentionally saved the best for last — or at least what many on st. Martin have told me should be the best meal. On my last day, i take up residence at la samanna resort on the secluded western end of the island and, that night, join a friend, Thibaut asso, who just happens to be the resort’s som-melier. in their famed wine cellar, Thibaut cares for more than 10,000 bottles of wine that rest quietly in a cave beneath the restaurant.

The Edible JourneySainTLY SLeePS Spend the night at la Samanna, a Mediterranean-style resort on Baie longue on St. Martin’s west coast. Rent a beach cabana (daily rates from $350) complete with an iPod, a bottle of champagne, a misting system and a personal atten-dant. Don’t forget to visit the wine cellar; with over 10,000 bottles, it’s one of the larg-est collections in the Caribbean. Rates from $475 including breakfast; lasamanna.com. Further south, the Pasanggrahan Royal Guest House in Philipsburg is St. Maarten’s oldest inn. This colonial lodge, furnished with antique and plantation-style furniture, is a former governor’s home and Dutch royal residence. Sup on pan-fried calamari steak at the gazebo restaurant overlooking Great Bay. Rates from $98. pasanhotel.com

waLk THe Line Stand on the international Bridge over the oyster Pond lagoon at Captain oliver’s Resort on the island’s east side and straddle two countries at once: France and the Netherlands. The hotel sits on the bound-ary line separating the two sides of the island. Captain oliver’s suites are tucked within hillside tropical gar-dens, and white-sand Dawn Beach is only a one-minute taxi-boat ride across the lagoon. Rates from $140, includ-ing breakfast. captainolivers.com

waiTinG TO eaT Visit the Mount Vernon Plantation, an 18th-century Caribbean estate located between Grand Case and orient Bay. Tour the grounds, which have more than 20 varieties of fruit trees, and learn how cof-fee and rum were produced here a hundred years ago. Admission is $12 and includes coffee and rum samples; plantationmontvernon.com. See the largest exhibit of ex-otic parrots in the Caribbean at the St. Maarten Park in

Philipsburg. This nearly 5-acre zoological and botanical park is home to more than 500 mam-mals from South and Central America and the Caribbean. Admission is $10. stmaartenpark.com

PL an YOur TriP islands.com/stmartin

At Temptation Restaurant on the Dutch side, chef Dino Jagtiani gives a creative flair to all his dishes. Another Dutch temptation is Cupecoy Beach.

DeTaiLS FLY to St. Maarten on American Airlines. aa.com kaYak across the in-visible French/Dutch boundary line in Simson Bay lagoon, the Caribbean’s largest saltwater lagoon. Kayak rentals from $15 per hour. trisportsxm.comeaT fresh chicken at Poulet d’orleans near Quartier d’orléans. 011-590-590-87-48-24 SPenD US dollars. Learn MOre at st-martin.org and st-maarten.com.

» TO MeeT CHeF jaGTiani anD TrY HiS reCiPeS, GO TO PG 98.

(continued on page 100)

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The candlelit cave is Thibaut’s per-sonal playroom. While sipping cham-pagne, he takes me on a tour, showing off several bottles of a dusty Romanée-Conti that go for something like $4,000 each, rare crates of Condrieu from the Rhone Valley and Pontensac from Bordeaux.

Thibaut can hardly contain his en-thusiasm for these liquid riches. “We have crates of the best wine found any-where in the world,” he says. “down here, you forget you are in the Carib-bean. You are in France, no?”

Yes. Until we go back upstairs and are seated in the opulent open-air dining room with a sunset view of anguilla, floating like a giant green turtle in the tranquil sea. The air is perfumed with the tropical scent of frangipani and ylang-ylang, the breeze rustles the royal palms around us and white orchids float in clear vases on the white-linen-covered tables.

The meal is extraordinary: a tartar of diver scallops and ahi with lime; herb-crusted halibut with candied papaya and asparagus; Kobe beef sirloin with sautéed morels; and a pinot-chocolate reduction.

There are foodies who travel annu-ally to Paris just to dine; next time, they should consider st. Martin. The food has been that good.

i have only half a day left on the island and, on a whim, have rented one of la samanna’s beach cabanas along Baie longue, a white-sand beach that stretches along a bay. The cabana has an oversize bed with huge pillows and teak chaise lounges. an attendant brings me fresh towels, cold water, even a bottle of champagne. it is a very strange thing to sit in a private cabana drinking champagne by yourself. But i do it anyway. i have told the attendant, in his white shorts and polo shirt, that i have an early afternoon flight and must be off the beach no later than 1 p.m. Knowing it is almost that time, i go for one last dip in the warm, placid water. i swim out past the anchored yachts, out

to where the bottom begins to sharply drop off and the water turns a cobalt blue. Eyes closed, i float on my back. From the shore i hear a voice calling my name. “it’s time, Mr. lansing. it’s time.”

But not just yet. For a few minutes more i float, thinking of this surprising gastronomic island in the West indies and its smoky, sweet conch boudin sau-sages at the lolos; dino Jagtiani’s foie gras in peanut sauce and port-wine fig jelly; grilled lobster caught off the saba Bank and served with icy-cold Carib beer at Mr. Busby’s Beach Bar on dawn Beach. The more i think about it, the more i realize that st. Martin isn’t really French at all. not in a Parisian sort of way. What it is, exactly, is kind of hard to say. it’s as exotic as a ylang-ylang bloom, as spicy as homemade chien sauce and as mysteri-ous as the tale of Mary Pomeroy. it’s a unique dish, a strange but wonderful mé-lange of escargot and johnnycake, Veuve Clicquot and homemade banana rum. it’s Gauguin in Tahiti with all its bright tropical colors and languid beaches. it’s like a david lynch movie, all mixed up and confusing but always fascinating.

it is, as Joel Morand whispered to me just before launching into his French-accented impression of Johnny Cash, “a bit unconventional — but i think you’ll like it.” ^

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St. Martin (from page 89)

» BrinG BaCk Made from oak-aged rum, cane sugar and wild guavaberries, guavaberry liqueur has been an island staple for hundreds of years and is made with berries picked

from guavaberry trees grown in the center of the island. This woodsy, spicy and fruity concoction was traditionally drunk around Christmastime, right after the berries had ripened. The Sint Maarten Guavaberry Company bottles their own liqueur at their headquar-ters, the Guavaberry emporium, a former governor’s residence in Philipsburg. Buy a bottle ($15.95) or consider their other guavaberry- infused products, including honeys and barbecue sauces. guavaberry.com

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