This Caribbean island is just the cure for your Culinary Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, with treatment that includes fried flying fish melts and conch fritters at top restaurants in Barbados.
David Coombs
Sufferers of a hotly debated chronic illness, Culinary Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (COCD), are aware that right now, there is no cure. But there is treatment. Those who doubt the existence of COCD—doctors and such—call this healing therapy general names like “vacation” or worse, “holiday.” But those who are victims of the relentless process, such as myself—a 40-year-old foodie with early onset of the disorder—know this ray of light by a more specific and apropos name: Barbados.
Part of the Lesser Antilles, Barbados is the easternmost Caribbean island, located just northeast of Venezuela, and easily accessed from the United States. The island has a colorful and important history, dating back to the Amerindians and continuing to 1625 when an English ship claimed Barbados on behalf of King James I, and then to 1751 when Colonial America’s future president, George Washington, stayed on the island with his tuberculosis-stricken half-brother to improve his health. Today, Bajans (in local dialect) so love George Washington that they restored and furnished the historic Georgian house he slept in, opening it to the public in 2007 complete with a café and a gift shop in the 18th-century stables. They even show a movie about Washington’s journey to Barbados—the only one he ever took out from the mainland.
More to the point for COCDers, however, is that Barbados is often referred to as the “Dining Capital of the Caribbean.” Richard Williams, a native who is the vice president of the Americas for the Barbados Tourism Authority, notes that “for a Caribbean island, this is a unique experience for food. We have a nice assortment of restaurants.”
In fact, Pat Hoyos, editor of the 2008 Zagat Best of Barbados, points to 174 eateries remarking that “this year’s crop of newcomers adds to a list of wonderfully varied choices.” These range from ethnic newbies such as Apsara & Tamnak Thai in Christ Church to long-running haute cuisine master The Cliff in St. James to the purely Bajan establishment called The Cove, situated above Cattlewash in St. Joseph.
Jen Karetnick
If you feel COCD symptoms coming on strong, walk right into Indian-themed Apsara, on the ground floor of a renovated, 200-year-old plantation house, or Tamnak, the sister Thai establishment on its first story, for a sizzling, savory lunchtime curry. For dinner, however, the restaurants “do recommend that reservations be made for dinner to avoid disappointment.” Morcambe House, Worthing, Christ Church. Tel. +246-435-5454. Hours: Open daily from 6:30 to 9 p.m. www.apsarabarbados.com
The Cliff and The Cove both require reservations, particularly during high season. But do note that the latter, owned by Gourmand World Cookbook Award-winning chef Laurel Ann Morley, who was born in Venezuela but whose parents were Trinidadian and grandparents Bajan, is far more casual and open only for lunch. A small blue house perched dramatically on a hillside, The Cove can be tough for outsiders to locate. But one taste of Morley’s thyme-spiked conch fritters or her curried chicken and potato roti, accented with sweet-tart tamarind chutney—accompanied by a glance of the waves beating on the eggshell shore below you—and you’ll forgive the hardship. The Cove, Atlantic Park, Cattlewash. Tel. +246-433-9495. Hours: Open Wed., Thu., Sat., Sun. from 12 to 3 p.m. The Cliffs, Derricks, St. James. Tel. +246-432-1922. Hours: Open daily from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Two-course meal prices start at BD$245 per person (US$124). www.thecliffbarbados.com
Another epicurean facet enabling Barbados to stand alone is its denizens’ devotion for a particular fish. Actually, many restaurants in the Caribbean serve frozen fish because the jet stream around their islands isn’t conducive to catching fresh fish. (So yes, they get it shipped from other places, like Florida.) But while cricket, not fishing, is the No. 1 sport in Barbados, it’s the flying fish that’s earned itself the title of “national treasure.”
Courtesy of the Waterfront Café
Indeed, Bajans so love the flying fish they even consider its reproductive organs a delicacy. One of the best places that tourists can find the battered and fried “roes and melts” of the flying fish is at the picturesque Waterfront Café on the Bridgetown Marina in St. Michael, which is easily accessed from the deep-water port where the cruise ships make anchor. Served with a zesty horseradish aioli, the melts are surprisingly good, with a buttery texture and faint, musky smell that reminded me of oysters. I have to admit, though, that the first time I ate them I didn’t exactly know what they were, beyond “they’re the melts, mon.”
So if these make you shudder just by thought itself, indulge instead in the café’s specialty of flying fish and cou-cou (a Caribbean polenta made with okra). The fillets of fish, steamed skin-on and jelly roll-style in a fish broth that is also redolent of tomatoes, onions, hot peppers and thyme, are plated next to a mound of molded cornmeal. This cou-cou, which speaks to the African heritage of Barbados, is an excellent starch for soaking up gravy, so the more you spill on, the better. The Careenage, Bridgetown. Tel. +246-427-0093. Hours: Mon. to Sat. 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. www.waterfrontcafe.com.bb
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