Last month’s edition of the annual St. Barth Bucket Regatta—in which 26 super-sailing-yachts were set to compete in round-the-island races—was won by Hyperion, a 155-foot-long beauty. But the four-day event was a victim of force majeure, or rather, a lack of it—an almost unprecedented paucity of tradewinds that often dropped below four knots—causing the organizers to shorten the course. So, as the superyacht authority, Boat International, put it, in the “seriously challenging” wind-free waters of St. Barth, “perseverance and tactical awareness proved key.”
Nineteen months after my summer 2023 article, “Clouds on the Horizon” (a snapshot of the world’s most elite resort island at a watershed moment) appeared in PALMER, the same challenge confronts St. Barthélemy. In a contentious election in 2022, the island’s longtime leaders, who’d presided over its rapid, and some said rapacious, development, had been ousted by an alliance of two opposition parties, whose leaders promptly began squabbling. That led some to worry that the government, called a Collectivity by the French, was also dead in the water.
Yachts docked for the St. Barth Bucket Regatta.
The standoff came to a head in March, when the territorial council rejected a no-confidence motion against the current president, and just a few days later, approved a new budget he presented that revealed an island as happy and fat with wealth as those who come to feast on its many pleasures. Like the Bucket, even at a standstill, St. Barth delights, though nowadays, it takes perseverance and tactical awareness to make the most of it.
Since Craig Clairborne first hailed it in the early ’80s, St. Barth has been known for its food. But lately, beloved locally-owned restaurants have gone out of business, replaced by outposts of bottom-line-driven high-end chains from .01% resorts like Courcheval and St.-Tropez. Their cookie-cutter menus of overpriced Mediterranean and Asian fusion dishes and high-pressure dance-on-table scenes are engineered to appeal to a certain crowd. So, it takes dedication to find places that reflect the island’s traditional vibe—but they are there.
Table dancing at Nikki Bech.
Try Ti Corail, an haute lunch truck in the sand at Grand Cul de Sac; dinner at Eddy’s Ghetto, drinks and burgers at Le Select and breakfast and cocktails at Bar de la Oubli in the capital, Gustavia; La Langouste, hidden in the unassuming Baie des Anges Hotel on the billion-dollar-baby bay of Flamands; Le Piment in the center of the Saint-Jean commercial district, and Nyama, a roadside shack in Corrosol with a Vietnamese menu as small as it is delectable.
Nyama, a roadside shack in Corrosol with a Vietnamese menu.
AMC, long the only big supermarket in Gustavia, is closing.
The same principal applies to shopping in this gilded Gallic ghetto. The same big brands you can find in any monied magnetville are all there, in greater numbers than ever before—many announcing their oligarch-ready opulence with imposing security guards stationed just outside often-empty stores. The latest arrival will be Tiffany & Co., which is said to be taking over the premises of AMC, long the only big supermarket in Gustavia, in order to feed the lingering status-hunger of the Ozempic Generation. But tucked here and there, all around the island, awaiting the tactically aware, are myriad boutiques offering locally made and small-brand delights like the high-quality linen shirts at Linen & Cotton and Cabane St. Barth in Gustavia, and the buttery-soft black driving moccasins at Brin d’Isle in the new Centre L’îlot in Lorient.
It’s true that from one perspective, St. Barth is a stellar scene under a bright Klieg light. I prefer the treasures that lurk just outside that glaring hot spot.