The Caribbean’s food scene continues to get better, with a renewed focus on honoring local styles and ingredients and a growing slate of world-class restaurants. And 2016 was an eventful year for the region’s restaurants, with several stellar debuts like St. Croix’s Balter but also the sad closing in December of one of the Caribbean’s greatest restaurants, La Cave a Vins in Martinique (although the owners are reportedly moving to a new location on the outskirts of Fort-de-France.)
With our fourth annual 50 Best Caribbean Restaurants list, we again seek to highlight the diversity and quality of the world of Caribbean food, using our three pillars of evaluation: food, service and ambience. Because as we like to say, the most important thing about a restaurant is how it makes you feel. And the best restaurants tick all three boxes.
Here are this year’s 50 best restaurants in the Caribbean.
Le Pressoir
Chef Franck Mear has achieved a masterwork with Le Pressoir, a truly exceptional restaurant set in an old Creole house in the heart of Grand Case, St. Martin. It boasts impeccable service, wonderful Brittany-meets-the-French-Caribbean cuisine and a kind of rarefied but relaxed ambience that makes for an instantly memorable meal. It is, in many ways, the perfect Caribbean restaurant.
Blue By Eric Ripert
There are few culinary experiences like this anywhere in the world; Ripert’s namesake eatery at the Ritz-Carlton in Grand Cayman is a journey through some of the best prepared seafood you will ever eat, along with Ripert’s signature Tuna Foie Gras, one of the world’s greatest dishes.
Screaming Eagle
Chef Erwin Husken has created the signature restaurant in Aruba and a refreshingly modern place with old-school credentials. And the ever-changing menu is ever-creative, from kangaroo to bone marrow.
Yantar
This is the best restaurant in Puerto Rico right now, although it remains under the radar even for local foodies. Helmed by star chef Xiomara Marquez, it is home to exquisite food that marries Spanish and Puerto Rican tastes.
Le Tastevin
You know immediately when you’ve entered an immaculately run restaurant, and Le Tastevin is it. The food is superb, the service is hyper-aware without being overbearing and the setting, above the beach in Grand Case, St. Martin is as good as it gets.
Flying Fish Modern Seafood
This eatery in Freeport might just be the single-biggest reason to visit the island of Grand Bahama. Chef Tim Tibbitts has cultivated one of the Caribbean’s most creative menus, with dishes like beef and rum cured wahoo tartare and crispy skin snapper, to name a few.
Le Soleil
Another one of the must-visit restaurants in Grand Case, Le Soleil serves up an intriguing mix of French Caribbean and Alsatian fare, with highlights including what is almost certainly the best magret de canard in the Caribbean.
On the Rocks
St. Barth’s signature restaurant at the Eden Rock St-Barths, one of two Jean Georges restaurants in the Caribbean (both of which are on this list), is spectacular. Dinner here is unforgettable, from the setting high above the illuminated water to marvelous fare, particularly the foie gras.
Graycliff
The Bahamas’ most famous restaurant, Graycliff, would make this list on ambience alone. Its old colonial mansion setting (including a pre-dinner drink in the lounge) makes for one of the Caribbean’s greatest experiences. But the service, too, is world-class, and the food is classic French fare with a Bahamian twist. That’s without mentioning the wine list, curated from the world’s third-largest private wine collection in the cellar.
Sheer Rocks
The view of Valley Church beach is stunning day or night, the decor is light and chic and the seafood is terrific. Plainly, Sheer Rocks, led by Chef Alex Grimley, remains the best restaurant in Antigua and Barbuda.
De Cuisine
Husband-and-wife team Chef Denise Carr and Joash Proctor lead this eatery in a nondescript shopping center that has managed to become the best restaurant on an island known for its food. The service is warm and attentive and the inventive cuisine is always sensational.
At Sea
At Sea was the restaurant that ushered in a culinary renaissance in Bonaire when it took home the number one spot in the Caribbean 50’s first edition back in 2013. It remains the island’s best restaurant and a Mecca for seafood lovers.
The Cliff
There is no more prestigious restaurant in Barbados than The Cliff, led by Chef Paul Owens and always offering a serious culinary experience. The menu is always simple, the food always extraordinary.
La Savane
The tiny fishing village of Deshaies in Guadeloupe is the best culinary destination you’ve never heard of, a kind of a mini-Grand Case, and it’s produced La Savane, a French Caribbean restaurant with an African decor that serves up some of the Caribbean’s greatest seafood (and foie gras).
Le Petibonum
It’s hard to find world-class fare at a beach bar, but that’s precisely what Chef Guy Ferdinand has achieved at Martinique’s Le Petibonum, with truly inspired food (particularly seafood) that is always pushing the envelope of what is possible in the French Caribbean.
The Cliff at Cap
It goes without saying that this is the best restaurant in St. Lucia right now, with Chef Craig Jones continue to set the standard for locally-focused high-end cuisine. The service is excellent, the view from the northern tip of St. Lucia is marvelous and the food is, well, outstanding.
Jose Enrique
Perhaps San Juan’s most sought-after table, it’s worth it at this San Juan institution in the neighborhood of Santurce know for its hip cocktails and the spectacular work of its eponymous celebrity chef.
La Table de Marcel
The newest eatery on the Caribbean 50, this is the brainchild of Martinican Chef Marcel Ravin, who took home a Michelin star for his work at Monaco’s Blue Bay restaurant. This ultra-tiny restaurant in the Simon Hotel has some of the Caribbean’s most impressive food: classic French Caribbean fare with the kind of plating and molecular gastronomy techniques you expect in a Michelin-quality eatery.
Mi Casa by Jose Andres
Set at the tony Dorado Beach, a Ritz-Carlton Reserve in the beach town of Dorado, Mi Casa is a sleek eatery with a jaw-dropping view and a remarkable menu of Spanish and Puerto Rican dishes.
The Restaurant at Round Hill
If Jamaica has a destination restaurant, this is it. The flagship restaurant at Round Hill, Jamaica’s top boutique hotel, boasts one of the Caribbean’s most impressive locally-focused menus, under the stewardship of Chef Martin Ian Maginley.
Balter
There is a culinary renaissance happening in St. Croix, and it’s in large part due to chefs like Digby Stridiron, who has created the best restaurant in the Virgin Islands with Balter. Many restaurants purport to do fine-dining spins of local dishes, but Balter actually pulls it off.
Boucan by Hotel Chocolat
This remains one of the region’s most interesting menus, notable for its inclusion of some form of cacao in almost every dish (the hotel is set on a working cacao plantation). And then there’s the striking view of Petit Piton.
Parallel 23
The best restaurant in Turks and Caicos is set at the Palms Resort on Grace Bay Beach. Helmed by Executive Chef Lauren Callighen, it’s got a delightfully grand Old Caribbean feel and standout fare.
Daphne’s
It’s always a who’s who of Barbados (and London) at this Platinum Coast eatery that recently got a major lift with the arrival of Chef Michele Blasi from Milan, who has taken the restaurant’s food to a new level.
La Case de l’Isle
The flagship eatery at the Cheval Blanc St. Barth Isle-de-France is set right on the beach of Flamands Bay. Executive Chef Yann Vinsot’s menu is a mix of local and French concepts, highlighted by the restaurant’s crispy egg. The wine list is stellar, too.
Le Poisson Rouge
It would be a best-kept secret if anybody knew about it. Because this eatery, tucked away at the Tendacayou eco-lodge in Deshaies, Guadeloupe, is a very special thing: incredible French Caribbean food tucked inside of a rainforest.
Wilhelmina
Chef Chef Dennis van Daatselaar took an old Art Deco building in downtown Oranjestad and turned it into a new kind of restaurant in Aruba, with a remarkably diverse selection of “international” food and a top-level wine list.
Le Bredas
Hidden away in the rainforest in Martinique’s St. Joseph area, this is the standout eatery of the island’s celebrity chef, Jean-Charles Bredas, the man who almost single-handedly defined modern French-Creole fusion, no better represented than by his masterwork, the mille feuille of foie gras and banana.
Sol e Luna
Yes, there are great St. Martin restaurants outside of the hub of Grand Case, and this eatery-guest house is one of them, with a beautiful setting in an eclectically-designed space, a superb wine list and great pasta and seafood.
Queen’s Gardens Resort Restaurant
There is no better reason to visit tiny Saba than the Queen’s Resorts, set in the hills and home to its signature eponymous restaurant. The views are out of this world, the lobster is as good as you’ll find in the Caribbean and there’s even a great little rum bar.
Le Toiny Restaurant
Home to the Caribbean’s best Sunday brunch, this eatery (once called Le Gaiac) at the island’s Hotel Le Toiny boasts a stunning vista of Toiny beach and the kind of exquisite European-Caribbean cuisine you’d expect in St. Barth.
La Petite Auberge des Iles
Tucked away at the far end of the Marina Royale in Marigot, St. Martin, this eatery offers authentic, superb Creole cuisine and some of the best seafood we’ve ever tasted in the Caribbean.
Chaud
While Trinidad is rightly known as the Caribbean capital of street food, there are some high-level fine-dining restaurants — but none is better or more influential than Chaud, the brainchild of chef Khalid Mohammed that takes the island’s local concepts and gives them a haute cuisine spin.
Dune
Jean-Georges’ other standout restaurant in the region, this is the flagship of the One & Only Ocean Club, with a privileged perch above Cabbage Beach and wonderful French-Bahamian food.
Budatai
Chef Roberto Treviño is among the region’s most enterprising chefs, and his Budatai Asian fusion eatery remains among Puerto Rico’s best, with a hip decor, impressive service and simply terrific food in the heart of San Juan’s Condado neighborhood.
Mango
The most breathtaking views in Nevis are just the beginning at this seafood-focused restaurant at the Four Seasons Resort Nevis with a menu that is refreshingly faithful to its surroundings, with colorful takes on traditional West Indian dishes (the rum pairings are a must, too).
Au Bon Vivre
Set on the main street on the tiny island of Terre de Haut in Guadeloupe’s Les Saintes archipelago, this lovely eatery helmed by Chef Vincent Malbec is tucked inside an old stone building, with a mix of gastronomy from the French Caribbean and the French region of Toulouse. It’s magnificent.
Santaella
Like fellow Santurce resident Jose Enrique, this is an impossibly chic spot set in a former hardware store with always-innovating food that produces dishes like goat cheese quesadillas and veal cheeks in red wine.
Luca
The first thing you notice at this restaurant in the Caribbean Club in Grand Cayman is the massive wine cellar, visible through large windows at the corner of the restaurant. The food lives up to the challenge, with Italian fare led by a standout lobster ravioli.
Lobster Alive
It may seem simple: a beachfront eatery. But it’s so much more, with impossibly delicious lobster flown in from the Grenadines, frequent live jazz and a beautifully executed, seafood-focused menu.
Sapodilla
It isn’t easy to stand out in foodie-friendly Nassau, but Sapodilla immediately did upon its debut in 2014 and continues to offer a grand, old-world Bahamian experience led by Executive Chef Edwin Johnson.
The Camelot Restaurant
Relais and Chateaux’s Cobblers Cove hotel in Barbados is a bit of an oasis, and its signature Camelot Resstaurant is a similar environment for the food-inclined. Led by Chef Jason Joseph, it’s got seriously good seafood and some of the Caribbean’s best service, all in a shimmering waterfront setting.
The Cooper Island Beach Club Restaurant
There’s nothing particularly flashy about the food at the Cooper Island Beach Club’s restaurant — but it doesn’t need to be. Not when you have perfectly prepared food and some of the best fish you’ll ever eat. There’s a reason this place is a haven for boaters and those with great taste.
Jellyfish
It’s hard to imagine a place like this even exists, smack in the heart of the Caribbean’s all-inclusive resort capital. But Jellyfish is perhaps the Dominican Republic’s best-kept secret, a sweepingly designed beach restaurant with oh-so-fresh seafood.
Veya
Set in an old mansion in Anguilla, Veya has a wonderful ambience and excellent food, led by husband-and-wife team Chef Carrie and Jerry Bogar. The wine list is stellar, too.
Jacala
Another Anguilla standout, this beachfront eatery on Meads Bay is helmed by Chef Alain Laurent and has long been one of the island’s signatures. The food is, in a word, dazzling.
Le Bistro
This venerable restaurant in Antigua (and favorite of the island’s movers and shakers) has a relaxed but elegant ambience and a delightful menu of mostly French fare and creative French takes on Antiguan ingredients.
Champers
One of the must-visit tables in Barbados, Champers has a simple but extraordinary menu of global fare; but more importantly, eating here is always an event.
1919
One of the most exclusive restaurants in Puerto Rico, the 1919 restaurant at the Condado Vanderbilt in San Juan is led by star Chef Juan Jose Cuevavs and a diverse menu featuring dishes from around the world — and a top-level wine list.
Scotchie’s
There are few places worth leaving your hotel for a meal in Montego Bay, but if you choose only one, it’s got to be Scotchie’s, one of Jamaica’s Meccas of jerk cooking.