AGUADILLA, Puerto Rico — US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Air and Marine Operations (AMO) seized 283 pounds (128.8 kilos) of cocaine on Sunday night after intercepting a “yola” type vessel near the northwestern coast and arresting two men onboard. The estimated value…
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Graycliff, the Caribbean epicenter of luxury
By Alexander Britell
CJ Editor in Chief
In the middle of a room in an old pirate mansion in Nassau there is a piano.
Every night, the sound of this piano weaves through cigar smoke and robust laughs, the soundtrack for an instantly memorable dinner.
There’s a story that Billy Joel, dining here, was once asked to play this piano, and a single song turned into an hour and a half set. The Piano Man simply could not leave the bench.
That’s not a surprise. Because here at Graycliff, the Garzaroli family has cultivated a unique kind of energy, one that draws guests back again and keeps the old mansion permanently, wonderfully sealed away from the mundanity of the world.
No matter if it is your second or 20th visit, when you climb the steps from West Hill street and enter the Lounge, you’ve returned to the instant you left, the room a memory you can come back to and relive, an elixir for nostalgia.
As the rest of the world gets newer and loses something of itself, Graycliff remains a fixed point in time and space.
While it began life as a pirate mansion, then a retreat of British nobles, the Garzarolis have turned it into something far more – first, the Caribbean’s first five star restaurant- then a boutique hotel, then, a world class cigar factory (Avelino Lara, once Fidel Castro’s personal roller, developed the brand).
Next was a chocolate factory, and now the family is restoring and reinventing West Hill Street into a historical village, replete with an artists’ colony, a cafe, shops and, soon, even a winery. (In the old dungeon of the manor sits the worlds third largest private wine collection).
The artists’ colony on Via Enrico in the Graycliff Historical Village.
They are always tinkering, always looking for new avenues of delight, cleverly building a luxury empire.
Yes, you can stay here in the hotel’s charming rooms and spend an afternoon at the stunning pool puffing on a Chateau Grand Cru, or take a chocolate lesson and then eat a full fledged Neapolitan pizza. You can spend a weekend or a week on a getaway from the artificial, surrounded by the authentic.
It is an understatement to say there is nowhere like this in the Caribbean – it is a removal from modern, more synthetic concepts of luxury that is instead a loving tribute to the fundaments of luxury – all the things we already know to be great – wines; aged spirits (including a broad selection of cognacs); cigars; Classic continental gastronomy with a Bahamian accent; and, most importantly, overwhelmingly good service, the kind meant to make you feel not just like royalty but royalty staying in a fellow royal’s home.
Because luxury is not about bar programs and wellness concierges — it is about changing the way you feel, making you feel grand.
There is a pull here, something magnetic. It brings you back, and if it’s your first time here, it makes you a regular. There is a soul here, floating in the cigar smoke and the robust laughs.
Just be careful about sitting at that piano. Because you may never leave.
The post Graycliff: The Jewel of the Bahamas appeared first on Caribbean Journal.
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A perfect beach. Classic jazz. Giant lobster.
It’s hard to find a better combination of, well, anything, in the Caribbean.
This is Lobster Alive, a small beach restaurant on Carlisle Bay in Barbados that is one of the island’s truly great places to eat — and still one of its best-kept secrets.
The recipe is simple, thanks to world-class Caribbean spiny lobster flown in live from the Grenadines by owner Art Taylor.
They’re all stored in a large tank in the restaurant for easy viewing.
Lobster Salad at Lobster Alive.
The menu has a broad selection of lobster and lobster-inspired dishes, from terrific lobster bisque to lobster thermidor to the signature boiled lobster finished on the barbecue with garlic butter, from small (1.25 lbs) to extra large (2 lbs).
The menu is seafood-rich, with delicacies like the conch samosas, above.
And then there’s the jazz, either recorded classics or regular live jazz by local dixieland band VSOP.
Simply put, it hits all the right notes.
— CJ
The post Lobster and Jazz in Barbados appeared first on Caribbean Journal.
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The Caribbean-Mexico region is seeing a big jump in hotel construction, according to the latest report from STR.
The regional hotel pipeline saw an 18.5 percent increase in rooms under contract and an 18.7 percent increase in rooms in construction in October, compared to the same month in 2015.
That represented a total of 32,678 rooms under contract, along with 13,962 rooms in construction, according to the report.
STR’s data covers projects in the in construction, final planning and planning stages.
The upscale segment accounted for the largest portion of rooms under contact in the “chain scale” segment, with a total of 7,678 rooms.
The luxury segment accounted for the largest percentage of rooms in construction, with 24.2 percent or 3,374 rooms.
— Caribbean Journal Staff
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The boutique Mount Nevis hotel in Nevis has completed a major expansion project.
The hotel has introduced a total of 12 new suites as part of a larger transformation that included a new wing and conference room.
The Mount Nevis now has a total of 50 rooms, having also announced that it had joined Preferred Hotels and Resorts.
The hotel, which first debuted in 1989, includes an outdoor restaurant and bar, a pool and a complimentary private shuttle to the beach, among other amenities.
A third phase of the hotel’s transformation is planned.
“Now we can celebrate what we promised,” said Dr. Adly Meguid, co-owner of the property.
— Caribbean Journal Staff
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