Grand Case

The strip

One narrow road running along a west-facing bay, with restaurants down both sides of it and the sea at the end of most of them.

At the northern end, the lolos — open-air barbecue stands grilling ribs, chicken, fish and lobster over charcoal, served family-style at long tables. Along the rest, proper French kitchens with tables on the water.

It is a place you walk down and choose, which is half of what makes it good.

Why it is the best eating here

Because it is French, and because there is enough of it.

Other places on this island have a good restaurant. Grand Case has thirty, competing with each other on one street, which keeps all of them honest. The cooking is genuinely French rather than French-influenced, and the ingredients arrive from the same supply chain as mainland France.

The lolos are the other half of it. Cheap, unpretentious, cooked over charcoal at the roadside, and better than most of what you will eat in a restaurant anywhere else on the island.

Do both in a week.

The sunset

The bay faces west, so dinner and sunset are the same event if you time it. Sunset here is between about 5:45 and 6:45 depending on the season, and it goes quickly — there is very little lingering dusk this close to the equator.

Book a table for six and you will eat as it happens. See a sunset drive.

The parking problem

This is the practical thing nobody tells you.

Grand Case is one road. The parking on it fills by about seven in season. After that you park wherever you can find space, sometimes several hundred metres out, and walk in along a narrow road with no pavement in places and people walking down the middle of it.

In the dark, after a drive, in shoes chosen for dinner, that is a poor start to an evening.

And the drive home

Thirty-five minutes back to the Dutch side, on roads that are unlit for parts of the way, after an evening involving wine.

Which means either someone in your group does not drink, or you take a taxi at the French late-night rate — 50% above the standard fare after midnight, which is exactly when you would be leaving. See the full tariff.

Being dropped at the door and collected when you are ready solves both problems at once, and it is the single most useful thing we do on this island. See dinner driver.

During the day

Quiet, pretty, and a fair amount closed. The beach in front of the village is calm and pleasant but small.

For lunch it is excellent and worth the drive. As a day out it is thinner than the evening version, and on a cruise call you should know that is what you are getting. See cruise port to Grand Case.

Reservations

In season and at weekends, yes, for the better places. Out of season you can walk the strip and choose, which is the nicer way to do it.