By Sarah Greaves-Gabbadon
CJ Travel Editor
Sure, good hotel cuisine requires an experienced and inventive chef. But at the end of the day, it’s the raw ingredients that really make the meal. And when those ingredients come fresh from the resort’s farm, are organically grown, and allowed to ripen on the vine, you’re guaranteed a feast that’s both flavorful and memorable. So check out these hotels, each with their own farm, and taste the difference freshness can make. Here are the top Caribbean farm-to-table resorts.
Kittitian Hill The lush hillsides of its 400-acre Belle Mont Farm (and a group of carefully vetted local growers) supply the kitchen at this St. Kitts villa resort with a cornucopia of ingredients, from pineapple to papayas, breadfruit to bananas.
Fond Doux Plantation & Resort When a resort sits on 250-acre working plantation you expect its fare to be outstanding. And this St. Lucian stunner doesn’t disappoint, serving delicious meals made from homegrown ingredients (coconuts, bananas and cocoa among them) in its Bamboo and Cocoa Pod restaurants.
Anse Chastanet and Jade Mountain These sister resorts share not only a stunning sweep of St. Lucian property (one beachfront, the latter hillside) but also the sweet and savory bounty from Emerald Farm. The 650-acre hillside spread boasts a variety of fruits, veggies, herbs and spices, everything from cocoa to carrots; stevia to cinnamon; turmeric to Tahiti limes; and sweet potatoes to spearmint.
CuisinArt Golf Resort & Spa This Anguilla resort’s hydroponic farm, which employs fertilizer-spiked water to grow produce, yields, among other things, you-have-to-taste-them-to-believe-them tomatoes, which star in signature salads at its al fresco Café Med.
Guana Island On this private-island resort in the British Virgin Islands, three-acre Liao’s Orchard’s bounty includes more than 300 banana plants, 25 mango trees, and other tropical fruit including naseberry, starapple, papaya, passionfruit, cherries, and key limes. So dessert’s bound to be good.
Petit St Vincent The organic garden at this private-island all-inclusive resort in the Grenadines is overseen by chef Andi Cahyono, and supplies fresh fruit, veggies, salad greens and herbs for PSV’s pair of restaurants. And more than 400 free-range chickens supply oodles of eggs, which are the magic ingredient in scrumptious homemade ice cream.
Rosalie Bay Resort The 1.5-acre organic garden at this Dominica eco-resort proves itself worthy of its Nature Island location with an enviable inventory of produce, herbs and spices, including sea grapes, plantains, nutmeg and noni. See them for yourself during weekly guided walking tours through the hillside plot.
Le Soleil d’Or The big draw at this petite Cayman Brac boutique is the cuisine, the ingredients for which are sourced at its 20-acre farm, which yields fruit, produce, and eggs that are sold in a new farm store and savored in meals at its Mango restaurant.
Jakes In Jamaica’s “breadbasket” parish of St. Elizabeth, this bohemian boutique hotel is perfectly placed to offer monthly al fresco feasts at nearby Dool’s Farm, where diners enjoy family-style dishes and wine pairings at an elegantly set table in the midst of the pastoral acreage.