I'll be heading to St. Maartens (Dutch side) for a 4 night stay at a beach resort, Caravanserai.

Looking for recommendations on places to eat, places with actual wine lists, etc.

Also looking for recommendations on things I must do and/or see while there.... best beaches, best bars, etc.etc.

Any help is appreciated!

Suggest going to French side for meals, wines, bars, etc. Marigot is a very nice village. Also has good shopping.

From what i remebre there is a nude beach called Orient Bay on the north east side.

Eat at Le Piccolo, in P-burg, behind a bank in Simpson Bay
Marks place was good for Creole.in P-Burg
Le Tastevin. good but a bit pricey. Great food and wine list
La Cigale - Nettle Bay. small cozy and great

Other French to try,that we liked.
L'Auberge Gourmande
L'Amandier
L'Escapade

Enjoy.

If you get bored, take a cat to St. BArts. About an hour away. Cozy, and some great food, views and wines. Get a cab to drive you around the island.

I much prefer the Dutch side. Favorite place to eat on the island is Le Sental. Make a reservation and ask for a seat by the water. Be sure to go after dark. Food is excellent, decent wine list, and setting is romantic.

In Philipsburg, La Grenouille and L'Escargot are our favorites. The Rusty Pelican is good for a lighter dinner, maybe with beer.

There is a great restaurant located in an industrial area outside of town. I don't remember the name. It's in a home and is open for dinner only several nights a week. Just give that description at your hotel and they'll be able to tell you where it is.

For lunch, the Oyster Pond Yacht Club is excellent on the other side of the island.

Caravanserai has a great Sunday brunch. Don't miss it.

For a great fun lunch, stop in at one of the nice food shops/delis in Marigot and make yourself a picnic.

Best beach is at what used to be the Mullet Bay resort. I don't know what it's called now. Bring your snorkeling equipment and go out first thing in the morning before the swimmers. You'll see sting rays and sculpins in the remarkably clear water.

Take a drive up Paradise Mountain for the geat view.

Stroll the street of Marigot for some fun shopping.

You can catch a short flight for a day trip to St. Barth's.

Have a great trip. St. Maarten is a wonderful island.

One caveat, don't dine at La Vie en Rose. The kitchen was filthy! Disgustingly so.

Board-O

Guess we covered the Island. Liked a couple of your choices. Guess you see I liked the French side.

I liked the French side, but I thought the beaches were nicer on the Dutch side. You could park in Philipsburg and walk to a lot of stores and restaurants. Marigot was a bit hectic but that won't be too much of a problem at the time Brad is going.

Thanks for all the great suggestions.... was definitely thinking of doing some type of catamaran trip, so glad you mentioned it.

You guys recommend renting a car?

So you two battle it out... which place to dine is the absolute best for food? And then.. absolute best for the food/wine combination?

Can I bring my own?

The feature that we like best about St Martin is the quality of restaurants. However, most of the good ones are on the French side. When we first went there many of the good restaurants were clustered in the village of Grand Case with a few others in Marigot. Grand Case is still there and it’s still a pretty good place to go and eat, But you now find excellent restaurants all over the French side. As a general rule, though, there’s very few restaurants I would bother to go to on the Dutch side.

Some of our favourite restaurants are:

Mario’s Bistrot - in Sandy Ground just out of Marigot tel: 87 06 36 (Owned by couple from Trois Rivieres; serves Asian Fusion – Fabulous tastes)
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Tropicana – at Port Royale in Marigot (Owned by long-term restauranteur couple from France; serves continental menu – Great food at reasonable price)
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Don Camillo – at Port Royale (Serves good pasta/southern Italian food – We don’t go there because the Italian owner is an eccentric twit, but their food is excellent)
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Le Pressoir – at Grand Case tel: 87 76 62 (Owned by former chef at Le Tastevin; serves continental menu – Expensive but excellent food, Great wine list)
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L’Auberge Gourmande – in centre of Grand Case tel: 87 73 37 (This used to offer great French country food at superb prices. Unfortunately, the owner/chef got cancer and went back to France. The restaurant has been sold a couple of times since and prices has gone up a lot, but the staff are the same and they are good.)

There are others, but this will get you started. If you want to eat in local (European) restaurants, you can find some great simple French bistro-style restaurants in an area known as ‘Concordia’ just up-hill from tourist Marigot. (Follow signs for Marigot’s city hall, or take Rue du Concordia and wander around the residential area.)

There are lots of wine shops in and around Marigot. The best ones make most of their money supplying restaurants on the island. The one I seem to buy most of my wine from is Le Gout du Vin on Rue de L'Anguille in Marigot. The lady who owns/runs the business usually fills me in on what’s new on the restaurant scene. Once she gets to know you, she will tell you where to go for some good ‘local’ spots.

There is one good wine store/warehouse in Philipsburg called Caribbean Liquor and Tobacco. They are on the road leading to the cruise boat dock, and their selection is excellent because they supply a lot of top-end restaurants with wine. Their facilities are temperature-controlled so you need not worry about buying cooked wine.

Caravanserai is right by the airport, so you will find lots of aircraft noise during the day. It's also close to a time share resort area (Don't remember what it's called, but it's on the other side of the runway from Caravanserai).

In general, I find the Dutch side more crowded with tourists than the French side. The cruise boats all dock in Philipsburg and make the town a gathering place for cruiseboat day-trippers. It isn't the nicest part of St. Martin. As well, the airport is on the Dutch side and so are all the casinos and time-share hotels.

Our favourite beaches are in the French Lowlands. The closest beach is Long Beach which starts at the La Samanna hotel. If you walk to the right down the beach, it will turn into Plum Beach where you cross the little stream and the shoreline turns a corner, and then it turns into Baie Rouge at the next bend in the shoreline. Between La Samanna and Baie Rouge, there are only private beach houses (most of them are available for rent), and there is no easy access for tourists. These beaches are really quite charming if you don’t mind not having bar service. And Baie Rouge is one of the prettiest Caribbean beaches – it has a parking lot and does get some tourists but not too bad. The best times to go are early or late in the day.

I totally agree about the car - you have to have your own transportation to enjoy the island.

The major car rentals are all there, but they are relatively expensive. But I'd stay away from Yellow Bird (the Budget franchiser)!!!

The two best rental agencies are local operators: Caribbean and Best Deal. Best Deal will give you the lowest prices and, best of all, they are honest! We damaged one of their cars during hurricane Lennie and they were extremely fair in how the repair was handled. Also you can negotiate with them - I usually take one of their older cars (2-3 years old) and get a rate of $20 per day.

The Fish Pot in Grand Case.
They do a Gran Marnier souffle that is very possibly the best dessert I have ever had.

My favorite resturant:

L'Auberge Gourmande

Have now idea about BYOB. Never considered it, and bought off the menu.

The liquor shops in P'burg cater a lot to the cruse ships. some bargains, but found that items were 'common' not unique. In short, may not find any 'jewels' here.

I've been to St. Martin about 5-6 times and can't remember the actual name of a single place.

You should definately rent a car. It's a fun and safe island to explore.

There is a great beach bar to eat, drink, and watch the sunset at. The have a few tables with umbrellas. Serve buckets of beer and crab. Was always one of my favorite places to hang out. Does anyone know the name of the beach/bar? I'm pretty sure it was on the French side. Maybe up towards Friars Bay.

Chilly... :-) I'm just glad to know you went 5 or 6 times... must mean it's a great place!

Was thinking of doing the catamaran trip around the island... they stop at a bunch of places to do some snorkeling, have lunch at a really nice restaurant, and serve drinks,etc. while on board.

Brad, it's a great island. All but one of the times I went there I was living on St. Kitts so it was an easy hop over there.

Definately go for the boat trip, one of the best ways to see parts of the island. Also, spend a day just exploring without any plans. Those always turned into some of my best days.

Brad, I've spent about a month on St. Maarten and I've snorkeled most of the island, except for the rough Atlantic side where there are supposed to be sharks. The best snorkeling we found was right off the beach that used to be the Mullet Bay resort. The rocks off to the side of the beach are teaming with fish. The sand in the early morning and late afternoon is loaded with yellowtail, sting rays, and sculpins. If you have an underwater camera, take it.

Kodak has a real cheap camera that runs about $ 15.00 Have used these for some snorking in the Carabean and Lanai. Photos turn out quite good.

I have a Canon Elph that has a waterproof case built specifically for it. I'll definitely be using that!

Well I flew there, I enjoyed tremendously, and I flew back, and now I miss it.


Stayed at Caravanserai... right next to Maho beach which is where those pictures of the airplanes flying incredibly low to the ground over people's heads comes from. The noise didn't bother us though since we were rarely in the resort during the day.

On Caravanserai grounds in a casino (didn't go), Bamboo Bernies which actually has really great sushi and is more of a middle upper restaurant than the name implies. Great ocean view... the sushi boat for two was fantastic. No real wine list. On the grounds is also Bliss, a VERY popular nightspot/bar for right on Maho beach... not my thing though. Crowd was mixed between young and old. Looked fun, but we didn't go. Music blasted all night...

Caravanserai itself was Ok. Smelled like they used that Orange cleaner.... a little obnoxious really. Air conditioning was powerful. Only complaints are low water pressure and the water tasted very metallic. Otherwise, nice place. The event organizer hooked us up with a great catamaran trip out to Prickly Pear (keep going past Anguilla) that had some really great snorkeling... beautiful island.... nice long trip out there on the cat which I really really enjoyed. Fun boat.. fun people... had a BBQ lunch on the island... drinks/snacks included. The catamaran trip is a must do for me going forward.... It was an all day trip. 9am to 5pm or so.

Did other snorkeling at Little Bay (definitely great snorkeling towards the left... Eastern side of the bay).

Dining: I'll post again when I get home tonight.. lots to talk about... especially that 1990 Chateau Fombrauge!!! OH MY LORD OF WINE THAT WAS GOOD!!!

Glad you had a good time.

welcome back home.