Dispatches from Anguilla (Pt 2): Restaurants - Good Taste is the Worst Vice

One of the reasons we keep going back to Anguilla? The restaurants! The food, of course, and the views, and the lovely people.

Smoked fish at Hibernia

Here’s where we ate this time:

Lunches

Trattoria Tramonto x3, Bamboo x3, Jacala x2, Hibernia, Sandy Island

Dinners

Straw Hat x2, AXA Seafood House, Dolce Vita, Hibernia, Jacala, Picante, Tasty’s, Trattoria Tramonto, Veya

Perfect view of St Martin from Tramonto

Trattoria Tramonto

Yes, it’s true, we had three lunches there – because I discovered that they have spaghetti alle vongole on the lunch menu. It’s always been one of my favorite dishes, and their version is close to perfection, with plenty of garlic and a flavorful sauce of clam broth and olive oil. (Order it spicy, and you get a generous sprinkling of red pepper flakes!)

The views and the beach aren’t too shabby either.

It can be awfully hot in the afternoon, so we’d take one or two dips in the ocean and then read for a little before heading back to the hotel.

My obsession: spaghetti alle vongole

Relaxing after lunch at Tramonto

Jacala

Still and always one of my favorites. I love to visit with Jacques and Alain, I love the chilled red Sancerre, and I love the easy, casual feel of the restaurant.

I walked over along Meads Bay one day while D was on a scuba trip, arriving a sweaty mess (it’s inevitably a longer walk than I remember, and there’s no shade). Some water, a glass of rosé, cold beet soup, and grilled watermelon salad perked me right back up!

We had the steak tartare on two of our visits; it’s always fun to see Jacques wheel the little cart over, put on his apron, and get down to the business of mixing the tartare – while having a little chat, of course!

Jacala’s grilled watermelon salad, with red Sancerre

Beet soup flavored with ginger

We continued our tradition of ordering a lunch to go for our last day – lobster club sandwiches, to be eaten at the St Maarten airport. As usual, Alain had them packed and ready to go by 11am, along with some of their delicious potato wedges. (Thank you Alain!) Picking them up gives us one last lingering look at the gorgeous, multi-hued ocean before we head to the airport.

Hibernia

Hibernia has been a lunch tradition for a few years now, and we made the drive again this year. When the Malliouhana hotel closed, Hibernia’s owners purchased the contents of their celebrated wine cellar – and now we’re the lucky ones who can enjoy these bottles.

D couldn’t resist the 1969 Chateau Haut-Brion, which was showing its age (very soft but still structured) and quite fun to drink in such an incongruous setting.

A treasure from Mary Pat’s cellar at Hibernia

Ice cream meringue cake

We made the long drive back another evening for dinner, partly because I’d seen another wine I wanted to try and partly because we had never had dinner there. (In the past the drive in the dark has seemed more daunting; this year D was pretty much driving and navigating like a local.)

Dinner was a different scene from lunch – Mary Pat was joined by a server and every table was full. The view at night is still rather nice, with the prettily illuminated garden below and the lights of Island Harbor beyond. We had a 1997 Corison Cabernet, I had my favorite smoked fish platter again, and we finished up the evening with a slice of almond and coconut ice cream meringue cake (a wonderful sort of baked Alaska concoction) and a pour of 1977 Chateau de Laubade Armagnac. Wow.

Straw Hat

This year we went to Straw Hat for our first and last dinners, and I could see it becoming a tradition – sitting out under the stars and eating curried goat.

We heard that chef from Koal Keel is cooking here now, and the menu has been updated a bit, which is always nice. The curried goat now appears as a pot pie, with coconut-scented rice and carrots at the bottom, then tender, spicy shreds of goat, and finally a layer of buttery puff pastry. It’s a little fancy but still homey and authentic feeling.