Anguilla: Tuning In Hotels & Villas.
On a bluff overlooking Meads Bay and Turtle Cove, Malliouhana, an Auberge Resort, reopened in late 2014 after a three-year makeover incorporating chinoiserie, vintage diving bells, mirrored floor tiles and Haitian art by Jasmin Joseph. There’s a two-tiered pool, spa and superb restaurant under chef Cupertino Ortiz.
The 35-acre Four Seasons Resort and Private Residences Anguilla has taken over the Viceroy, long known for being the best spot for sundowners with aged rums, Cuban cigars and crispy sushi. There’s also the signature restaurant Cobà on the headland, and the stealth beach hideaway Half Shell on Barnes Bay serving salads and wraps.
Known for its great snorkelling and watersports, 63-room Zemi Beach House Resort and Spa on Shoal Bay East is the freshest hotel on the scene. The spa is in a 300-year-old wooden house brought from Thailand plank by plank. There’s also a toes-in-the-sand restaurant, tennis court and rum bar.
Some say the 179-acre Greco-Moorish Cap Juluca is on the island’s most perfect beach: Maundays Bay, where all 69 rooms front the sand. There are tennis clinics, fitness classes and a wellness centre, and cheery staff who bring around chilled flannels, iced water and sorbet.
CuisinArt Golf Resort and Spa has a spa and 18-hole Greg Norman-designed golf course. This is a brilliant place for foodies: farm-to-table produce, acclaimed restaurants, including Tokyo Bay, cooking classes and wine tastings. High-end sister hotel, The Reef by CuisinArt, is due to open this month.
At Las EsQuinas in Little Harbour, more a gorgeous home than a hotel, Robin Ogilvie has created a breezy bed-and-breakfast decorated with travel mementoes. The showpiece in the living room is the ‘biggest cock on the island’, an eight-foot, hand-painted wooden rooster from Bali.
Classic Cerulean Villa on Barnes Bay is one of the largest, loveliest and best-managed houses to rent on the island, decorated by New Yorker Scott Salvator and with some covetable artworks, ceruleanvilla.com.
Beach House is a smart new villa on Meads Bay with eight bedrooms, split-level decks and terraces, an infinity pool, a tennis court, gym, theatre, basketball hoop and games room, all done up in a contemporary style.
Restaurants
Behind an enchanting entrance of blossoming white bougainvillaea is De Cuisine. Denise Carr’s dishes, which change regularly, include foie-gras mousse with spiced-mango preserve and hibiscus reduction, and shrimp-stuffed dumplings with lobster broth.
My favourite lunch spot is Blanchard’s Beach Shack for its chunky gazpacho, flat-bread sandwiches, pulled-pork tacos and flat-top hot dogs. Bargain big bowls come with a mountain of jerk chicken, rice, black beans, sweetcorn salsa, pico degallo, onion and Monterey Jack cheese.
On the more remote side of the island, the area around Hibernia Restaurant Art is great for good surf and boogie-boarding. There’s a delicious mix of Thai, French and Japanese food here: smoked fish with horseradish and ginger cream cheese on brown bread; wahoo in shio goji with purple sticky rice; crayfish with vanilla and lemon grass. Plus there’s a brilliant collection of Asian art; the owners source the paintings from Burma to Bali.
Straw Hat has recently moved to the Frangipani Hotel alongside some of the best beach-front joints. The low-key menu has West Indian veggie burgers, NYC-style bagels, spring rolls and spicy fish sandwiches. It also has some of the loveliest souvenirs, with bold graphic T-shirts, signage made from driftwood and cookbooks.
Beaches
Maundays Bay is small and perfect: a sweeping one-mile crescent. Meads Bay is a wide and expansive with top hotels, villas and restaurants. Rendezvous Bay, my favourite, has laid-back bars and guesthouses facing the hills of St Martin.
