By PAUL SCHNEIDER
Published: January 15, 2006
Phillippe Diederich for The New York Times
Phillippe Diederich for The New York Times
Modeling swimwear at the Hôtel St.-Barth Isle de France.
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," 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
"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
