It is no stretch to say that the island of Saint Barthélemy--popularly known as St. Barts--has the best restaurants in the Caribbean, for obvious reasons.

    For starters, it’s a French island and Air France (as well as Alitalia and KLM) have several flights per week, through St. Maarten, flying in European tourists and second-homers. And since the not-quite-ten-square-mile island has no indigenous food culture or agriculture to speak of, all ingredients must be brought in from Europe. Last, the island’s very affluent clientele expects to pay high prices at restaurants that try to replicate the best of French cuisine—not something you’ll easily find in the U.S. Virgin Islands, Barbados or Jamaica.

    In the wake of 2017’s devastating Hurricane Irma, St. Barts rebuilt at an astonishing rate and high cost to get the island back close to what it was, and a grand gesture to show its gastronomic resilience, the annual St. Barth Gourmet Festival was restored last November, for which Michelin-starred chefs were flown in (along with their ingredients) to cook gala dinners at the various re-opened resorts. Each prepared a four-course menu at 95 euros and an eight-course menu at 130 euros.  (One should consider that at some of their restaurants back in France a single dish can cost more than 100 euros.)

    The participating chefs were Nicolas Sale of La Table de L’Éspadon at the Ritz Hotel in Paris; Cédric Béchade of La Table de l'Auberge Basque, Saint-Pée sur Nivelle; Virginie Basselot of  Le Negresco Hotel, Nice; Édouard Loubet of Domaine de Capelongue, Bonnieux; Pierre Augé of  La Maison de Petit Pierre, Béziers; and Serge Labrosse of  La Chaumière, Troinex, Switzerland. All dinners were sold out. 

    I attended three chefs’ dinners and a lunch while there and was impressed by how well the chefs’ cuisine translated into a Caribbean idiom, with help from the resorts’ own chefs.  At Hotel Christopher’s brightly lit Cristo restaurant (left), Basselot, the first woman ever to win the prestigious Meilleur Ouvrier de France, served sophisticated renditions of celery-stuffed ravioli with a sauce of wild herbs; silky filet of cod with Japanese peas and a lemon balm butter; squab with fresh foie gras and a peppery olive sauce; and a dessert of salted butter caramel and mousse.

    At the renovated Le Tamarin, set within a shadowy garden near Saline Beach, Béchade did beautifully composed dishes like marinated trout in a smoky broth with roasted rice; a Basque-inspired marmitako seafood stew with tomato water; succulent roasted pork; and a tamarind tart (right).

    I also had a chance to dine at Le Toiny (left), a resort of 22 luxury suites set on a hillside on the wilder, leeward side of the island, where Loubet did an innovative dish of carrots stuffed with lobster tartare; red snapper simply dressed with caviar and eggplant; a rack of lamb with smoked thyme, leeks and a potato gratin; and for dessert “lemon caviar,” made with black chocolate bits flavored with ginger and coffee.

    While on the island I also had a chance to dine at the newest resort, Le Barthrmrly, which, after the hurricane, grew out of a smaller hotel to become a luxury resort that now extends along Grand Cul de Sac Bay, with a state-of-the-art holistic hydrotherapy center, the very popular WTF Rooftop Bar, and the wind-blown Aux Amis restaurant, headed by Chef William Girard.  I chose from a fine traditional menu that began with a carpaccio of pig’s foot with herbs, and a dish of poached egg “meurette,” in red wine sauce, with bacon and mushrooms (20 euros). Main courses included a traditional blanquette of veal cheek cooked with carrots and onions (32 euros), and a juicy, spiced Caribbean grilled lobster (market price). Desserts, too, were classic—a Parisian flan with rum and cinnamon; a chocolate soufflé with vanilla ice cream; and a rich baba au rhum with tropical fruits.

    I had lunch one day at the always-packed Nikki Beach  (below) at St. Jean, with fourteen branches around the world (the first, in 1998, founded by Jack Penrod, was in Miami), all sharing an open-air very casual beach club style and similar buffet menus. While there I enjoyed everything from an array of sushi and sashimi, an array of shellfish, mozzarella di bufala, charcuterie and cheeses and an assortment of four very good pizzas.  Parties, fashion shows, bikinis and chair dancing are encouraged.

    My happiest find in St. Barts, located in the principal town of Gustavia, was brand new. Fish Corner is a small enchantment run by Johnny Laplace (left) and Nicholas Lebon, who have the great advantage of owning a fishing boat, so what’s on the day’s menu comes from the day’s catch—I actually admired their saying they’d run out early of a particular species—which also keeps prices very moderate for high-end St. Barts.  It’s a tiny room, very casual, and both owners are the servers.

    I was delighted with a carpaccio of tender octopus with a sauce vierge of olive oil, tomato and basil (20 euros); the best roasted lobster (market price) I had that week, with a potato puree; a baliste à la meunière (25 euros), and a light rosé wine from Provence.

    If you’re hungry for Italian food, Le Repaire, in Gustavia since 1991, should satisfy your pasta deprivation. I had a very good, very generous tagliatelle with langoustines. It’s also good to know Le Repaire is open daily, year-round, serves breakfast starting at 7 a.m. and stays open till midnight. It’s got a very thorough wine list and prices for both food and wine are reasonable. 

    It’s been a bit over three years since I last visited Utsav (from a Sanskrit word meaning “festival”), and my admiration for its cooking has only increased. While the menu hasn’t radically changed from my earlier visit, the food I tasted certainly ranked with the very best Indian cuisine in New York, and the prices— especially in this high rent location across from Rockefeller Center and a block from Times Square—are on average cheaper than a competitor like Junoon. And it would be hard to match Utsav’s consistently fine service staff, whose cordiality and efficiency in delivering successive dishes make dining a pure pleasure, all under the direction of owner Nandita Khanna  and Manager Jerry Joseph.
    What also has not changed much is the somber décor, whose lighting after dark is flat and drab and whose colors tend towards brown and rust. It’s a much nicer place to be at lunch, when sunshine streams through the tall, wide windows. (The private rooms are much more colorful, and there is a small bar downstairs.)
    Our party of four pretty much put ourselves in Joseph’s hands, with the help of our Indian waitress with the unusual name of McQueenie, to choose Chef Avtar Singh’s specialties, and he also recommended a Nebbiolo wine, chosen from a list culled to go well with this food, in addition to Indian beers.
     Singh is from Punjab and has worked in several notable Indian kitchens in the U.S., including Bukhara and Diwan in New York.
    We began with a series of savory appetizers to nibble on, from tandoori aloo of grilled potato halves, corn, green peas and cashew nuts ($10) to Bombay shredded blue crab, with garlic, cracked black pepper and crispy, crumbled cumin cracker ($16). A rich new dish is butter chicken kulcha, made with stuffed bread and a butter chicken filling ($7), and broccoli battered with cheese, yogurt and spices then seared in the tandoor oven came out impeccably cooked to the bite ($10).
    Two lamb dishes showed the versatility of the kitchen: one, a seekh kabab  of skewered ground lamb, marvelously spiced and seasoned with mint chutney ($23) and the other nalli ka salan, slow-braised lamb shank falling off the bone and suffused with a very complex reduction ($26). There was also a chicken malai kabab of boneless breast meat scented with cardamom and cooked with yogurt ($21). I’m not sure I’ve had tandoori Cornish hen ($25) anywhere else, so it was a treat to pick up the pleasantly chewy meat and bones from a generous fat bird. I have had butter chicken all over town, and if Utsav’s is not the very best, it’s still among the contenders—done with a fresh tomato sauce and fenugreek ($20).
    Indian restaurants too often flub seafood, often overcooking it and not always buying the best product. This is definitely not the case at Utsav. The large, meaty nawabi prawns ($28) were just barely cooked through, suffused with roasted garlic and spices. But a fillet of sea bass rasa baked in kerala coconut curry, fresh herbs and kaffir lime ($28) was easily one of the most delicious seafood dishes I’ve had in a while, Indian or not.
    Vegetables are a large part of Indian cuisine, and Utsav’s saag paneer of cottage cheese-enriched creamed spinach ($16) is very good, as is achari baigan of eggplant and pickled spices ($17).  The biryani rice dishes all have that wonderful fragrance of basmati rice, and come with raita yogurt. I chose goat ($22) as the meat component, warned it had bones, but it was worth the trouble of picking the tender meat of them.
    Of course, Indian breads are among the best in the world, and Utsav has a fine array ($4-$5): tandoori roti, naan, with garlic if desired,  aloo paratha spiced potato bread, and an impressive display of the puffed up poori that was exceptionally light and addictive. A variety basket is $12.
    Even those not in love with the usual Indian desserts should love the "Paan Acotta” of paan-flavored cream, fennel and rose; the sharabi kheer rice pudding with rum-infused raisins and coconut sorbet; and, especially, gulab jamun milk dumplings with a crème brûlée topping (all $8).

Utsav is open daily for lunch and dinner; à la carte or a fixed-price dinner at $38.