The Beginner's Guide to St. Barts

By PAUL SCHNEIDER of the New York Times

Published: January 15, 2006

It's relatively easy to maintain a healthy disdain for the renowned fabulousness of the Caribbean island of St.-Barthélemy until you actually go there and find yourself up to your neck in deliciously warm turquoise water, not quite hungry after your recent two-hour lunch but beginning nonetheless to ponder your plans for the drinks and dinner to come. That's when it occurs to you that there's nothing so bad after all about being young, beautiful, rich and fashionable.

"Yes, that is me," you say as a gentle swell lifts you temporarily off your feet. "I do need that IWC watch; I will have those Prada flip-flops."

Later, as you drive up and down the steep little island, around corners that give up staggering views of a rugged, dry coast interspersed with sandy crescents, and of other mysterious islands in the distance, you hear the wind whispering, "Submit, submit." Then at dusk the birds sing, "Life is good, life is good," and later still the waves outside your room chant, "You're beautiful, you're beautiful."

"Yes," you say to the waves in woozy reply, "It's all about St. Barts.

It's the only place to be. At New Year's, no less, along with my friends the Perelman-Barkins and Patrick Demarchelier, and look, there's my old homey Jay-Z now, and isn't that ... "Giselle! it's been so long, you look marvelous ..."

It's not an instant process, but there are steps you can take, places you can pause and genuflect, like stations of the cross, on your way to that nirvanalike state of a St. Barts veteran. It needn't take as long as you think, or even, perhaps as much money, though a credit card certainly helps.

"Yes, St. Barts, I am here, at last, here I am where I belong."

Step 1: Easy Does It
For lodging, the small and beautiful Hôtel St.-Barth Isle de France was eclipsed a while back as "the 'in' place to stay" by the campus of cottages at Hotel Guanahani & Spa, which has itself been recently displaced by the designer Christian Liaigre's exquisite makeover of Hotel le Sereno. But the Hôtel St.-Barth, on Flamands Beach, still has the best location of the three, and if you are in the mood for the island's finest $28 club sandwich accompanied by a low-key swimsuit fashion show, the restaurant overlooking the beach is the perfect place to ease into the local scene. Repeat this mantra: "I don't need to go where things are happening; things are happening where I go." Oui, you think, you will have pink wine with lunch. Oui, you will follow it all with an espresso, even though your plan for the rest of the afternoon is no more taxing than slipping into your swimming suit for a postflight session on the nearby sand.

Step 2: Bigger Is Better
Lunches are long and dinners are late in St. Barts, and by the time you get to your second major meal of the day - having had a restorative nap between the two - there will be plenty of restaurants to choose from. Opt for an outside table at Le Bête à Z'ailes, one of the few restaurants on Gustavia's handsome square-cornered harbor. It's a groovy sort of bamboo-inflected place that often has tasteful duos playing in the open-air bar. While you nibble edamame and wait for your maki and sashimi - it has all the usual designer rolls - talk will turn inevitably to the nautical bling bobbing nearly gunnel to gunnel in the harbor.

"Is that Diddy's or Valentino's?" "No way, Valentino's won't even fit in the inner harbor," says your friend who knows.

"Are you telling me that Valentino's is bigger than Diddy's...."

And so it goes until the sake runs out.

Step 3: Chemical Rebalancing
If the first thing you need in the morning, after a very late night out the day before, is a chocolate fix, head for the Petite Colombe bakery in Lorient. True to its classic selection of French pastries, the bakery's staff members have a démodé surly attitude toward lame French speakers.

What they don't have - what almost nowhere on the island seems to have - is really good foamed milk (too Italian). For that you have to head to Maya's to Go, across from the airport. (That is also, by the way, a great place to get take-away food if you have a long layover in St. Maarten's airport on your way home.)

Step 4: Raison d'Être
In some foolish moment before leaving home you may have promised yourself that you were going to resist the urge to shop while in St. Barts. You may even have gone to bed in your hotel Friday night saying the same thing. But in the clear light of Day 2, you find yourself in Gustavia pretending that there is no real exchange difference between the euro and the dollar, making prices seem marginally more reasonable. Perhaps you're at the House looking for an antique Buddha for the friend who's taking care of your dog. Or at Maryvonne & Gérard trying on exquisite black Tahitian pearls the size of acorns that hang from a simple leather cord. Or at any of the big league international boutiques, the first of which was Hermès. If you absolutely must surround yourself with a cloud of self-satisfaction, there are dueling Cuban cigar stores at the end of the Rue de la République.

 When you tire of telling yourself "I really shouldn't," you might try the more down-to-earth shops of St.-Jean. Check out especially Sabina Zest, where the fetching tie-dyed tank tops, along with everything else, are made on the island. Chances are good either you or your mate could spend the better part of the day among racks and display cases of St. Barts; fortunately, the stores all close between noon and around 2 for lunch.

Step 5: See and Be Seen
People who have been on St. Barts since the beginning of its reinvention in the swinging 1970's from a desperately poor backwater island - that is, the ones who can recall seeing the villagers slaughter cattle in the open air at the present site of the Cartier boutique - turn their noses up at the Nikki Beach club on the Baie de St.-Jean. "It's a chain," they sniff, in reference to sister restaurants in St.-Tropez and elsewhere.

The disco music at Nikki Beach is, in fact, relentlessly cheesy, and the crowd is decidedly of the "I didn't pay good euros for these breasts in order to keep them in the garage all day" type. But really, where else are you going to retire to a Cleopatra-style covered divan on the beach after your tuna tartare? It's as fabulous as you make it, darling.

Step 6: Full Immersion
Tradition has it that at the end of the path leading to Saline Beach, the island's largest and best strand of sand and sea, on the south shore of the island, you must make a lifestyle choice. The crowd on the far right is gay and potentially naked. The left wing is straight and potentially half-naked. But it's not a hard and fast rule on either front, and wherever you choose to put your towel you'll soon be out in the swell, just another a marine mammal floating on your back beneath an azure sky. Don't forget to apply sunblock to any freshly exposed body parts.

Step 7: Holiday Spirits
Get the evening started in a very clean modern style at the martini bar overlooking the sheltered beach of the Grand Cul de Sac at Le Sereno. Or on the prowlike deck at the Eden Rock hotel. Or at the relentlessly monochromatic Zanibarth. Or the groovy beachside Do Brasil. Or on your old roommate's 150-foot "boat." But you had better not try all of the above; the night is younger than you are.

Step 8: Instant Nostalgia
The more things change, the more Maya's (the restaurant, not Maya's to Go) stays the same, and that's just the way real St. Barts regulars like you like it. Out past the commercial docks on the outskirts of Gustavia, with a large open-air dining room fronting the water, it was one of the first really good restaurants to open on the island, making a name for itself with an unfussy but flavorful menu that always includes some fresh local fish. You, however, opt for the grilled chicken skewers done with a delicious light coconut sauce, and - when talk turns momentarily to issues of war and the economy - gaze over the outer harbor toward the twinkling lights of the private ocean liners that are too big to fit in the inner harbor and think subversive thoughts. Fortunately for everyone at the table, however, dessert arrives, and the presence of Jimmy Buffett at a nearby table causes the subject to change pleasantly to how different St. Barts was in the early days.

Step 9: Extra Credit
Onward Bartian Soldier, to Le Yacht Club, which is most definitely not the blue blazers, pink pants and weak cocktails at 5 p.m. sort of place the name might imply. Think instead: last glass of Champagne at 4 a.m. after a night on the dance floor that didn't begin until sometime after midnight.

Step 10: Morning Ablutions
Gouverneur Beach is a smaller, more sheltered version of Saline. It is better when time is running out because you can drive right to the water and don't have to pause to consider your sexual orientation before diving in.

You would love to stay forever, really you would, but there are so many important things calling you back to New York and Paris, Hollywood and Milan. Your jet is waiting, and check-in is at least an hour before flight time. See you all next year, darlings, same place.