St Barts

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IT ISN'T ONLY first-time visitors to Saint-Barthélemy who are struck by the novelty of landing on the island. As our Cessna plummeted between looming hillsides towards the tiny airport at St Jean, the Frenchman next to me turned pale and began to mutter about how this was always the worst part.

If St Barts were too accessible it would be like Marbella. But once you arrive all you need is to potter into Gustavia for jetlag-dissolving cocktails at Le Repaire, the island’s friendliest brasserie.

At Christmas, St Barts resembles Monte Carlo during Grand Prix week as the likes of P. Diddy, Mariah Carey and Leonardo Di Caprio swarm down in their chartered planes and Blofeld-style yachts. By spring the Black Amex crowd is already heading for Sardinia or the Hamptons, leaving St Barts more relaxed.

Down time

A small hurricane threat hangs over the Caribbean as summer approaches but in May you’d be very unlucky to be clobbered and it’s a great time to visit St Barts.

I say this despite having been there when Hurricane Luis mashed the Leeward Islands in 1995. We ended up cowering in a hotel bathroom for 36 hours and emerged to find pulverised houses and yachts sprinkled across the island.

Yet we have returned to St Barts frequently since. all but once off peak. The timing is partly dictated by circumstances but we have become addicted to the delicious down time feel of the island, in contrast to its highseason hysteria.

In January, the roads are choked with columns of 4x4s and you can’t get into a restaurant unless you manage to infiltrate Brad Pitt’s entourage. When we go, you can bask in the illusion that you own the place.

First and irresistibly, the island’s prices shed several noughts, which means a trip to St Barts might work out cheaper than a visit to France or Italy. The weather is a few degrees warmer than at the turn of the year, but still exquisite.

Many restaurants stay open until the end of August before taking a break in September and October, and with fewer crowds, there’s no better time to sample the island’s Francophile culinary aerobatics.

Despite an insistence that overdevelopment will be resisted, it is hard not to notice the swelling density of designer boutiques, hotels and villas, but at least the increase in year-round residents means that even when the island is between seasons there are still places to eat, with l’addition purged of touristseason inflation.

Unforseen tourism

When the encrustation of megastars and Wall Street billionaires is stripped away, the outlines of old St Barts become clearer.

There’s a layer of recent arrivals from mainland France, but the longest-established locals can trace their ancestry to the 17th century, when groups of farmers and fishermen from Normandy and Brittany risked the ocean crossing and the man-eating Carib Indians to begin establishing settlements. They allied themselves with local French pirates, who appreciated the advantages of Gustavia harbour.

But the island never produced anything worth selling, and 50 years ago it was merely a rowdy stopover for workers on their way to Guadeloupe to cut sugar cane.

As recently as the 1970s the clientèle was a rough and ready crowd of surfers, sailors and hard-drinking outcasts of the islands. For the locals, the boom in elite tourism was as miraculous as it was unforeseen, though both visitors and residents share concerns about where the process may lead.

Distinctive french dialect

St Barts still exhibits many of the characteristics of a small French provincial town. To reach Lorient beach, you have to pass the local cemetery. It’s impossible not to notice the number of headstones carrying the names Ledée, Laplace, Gréaux and Magras.

‘Les St Barths’, as the traditional inhabitants are known, are a tightly knit community who vividly recall the pre-celebrity era, when the menfolk had to travel to the Virgin Islands to find work.

They share a distinctive French dialect and facial features that make them easy to recognise, even when they are not wearing the historic smock-and-bonnet costumes sometimes modelled by elderly ladies in the seaside village of Corossol. Some of the men favour a louche combination of Stetsons and patterned shirts, imparting a kind of Texas-goes-Cajun feel. Local politics can be impenetrable to outsiders.

The mayor, Bruno Magras, is a powerful businessman who controls a construction company and the St Barth Commuter airline in addition to his administrative duties.

The island’s regional councillor is Nordleing Magras, who has dared to voice criticism of the way that Bruno’s private interests supposedly benefit from his mayoral prestige, while the general councillor is Michel Magras. On one of our earliest visits, Bruno strolled up to us at the airport and genially offered to sell us some real estate.

It was no great surprise to learn that a large chunk of Colombier, the promontory on the island’s north-western tip where the views are even more spectacular than they are everywhere else, contains so many properties owned by his family that it’s known as Magras Mountain.

For the sun-seeking visitor, spring is a good time to rent a villa because owners offer super deals. Last year, the Sibarth agency found us a hilltop villa called Le Nid Beau, with 360-degree views, a large pool and an extended family of local cats willing to mimic pet behaviour in exchange for regular meals, and the amazing Amber House, a design feat redolent of an alliance between Apple computers and Philippe Starck.

These were available at a fraction of the high-season price – $26,250 for Amber House over Christmas. Both were fully tooled up with CD and DVD, satellite TV and broadband, barbecues – everything you’d need in the kitchen.

You won't regret it

No visitor should leave before sampling the cuisine at La Plage in St Jean, the Asianinfluenced specialities and harbour views of La Mandala or merely a croissant and café au lait at La Cantina.

For self-caterers The Match supermarket opposite the airport stocks pretty well everything though AMC (short for Alain Magras & Cie) in Gustavia seems to get the nod from the natives. Fresh fish from France arrives at AMC on Thursdays, but much of it will have been reserved in advance by the canny St Barthians.

An excellent alternative is the fish stall on the harbour-front, where salt-caked fishermen sell their catch of mahi-mahi, wahoo, lobster and tuna. A couple of large tuna steaks cost us four euros. Since booze is duty-free, a trip to a vintner such as La Cave or Le Goût du Vin may prove irresistible.

Takeaway food is a cut or two above Burger King, with Gustavia’s La Rotisserie and La Petite Colombe offering picnic-ready roasted chickens, quiches, pastries, breads, cheeses and salads.

There are few better ways to spend the day than loading up with food and supplies of wine, renting a boat from Marine Service on the harbour and motoring round to super-secluded Colombier beach.

It has the island’s best snorkelling and is slowly regaining the palmfringed majesty obliterated when it took the full force of Hurricane Luis. So forget about the minor chance of a hurricane – you almost certainly won’t regret it.