As much as any island its size in the Caribbean—35 square miles—Anguilla has its fair share of high-end resorts, not least the Four Seasons, Mallihouhana and CusinArt.
    The Four Seasons, with 181 luxury accommodations set on 35 acres of beachfront on Barnes Bay and Meads Bay, was last year taken over from what had been the Viceroy, and the Toronto-based hotel group has carefully been renovating the property while keeping the dramatic, solid modernism of the original design of low-lying buildings banked away from the sea. The manicured and angular spread of the property has the cast of a futuristic world afloat in a sea of serenity, right down to the great carved heads (above) set as totemic protectors.
     Tall glass walls and thick beige and white travertine marble columns play with the shifting light, while the extensive greenery provides slow-moving shade. Rows of palm trees sway drowsily in the warm, omnipresent trade winds above sun-flecked infinity pools. The outside off-white colors are echoed in the spacious rooms and large marble bathrooms. With considerable devotion to the environment, the resort has an on-site reverse osmosis plant to produce fresh “spring” water for the  resort that is then recycled to irrigate the native flora.
    The resort’s principal restaurant is called Coba (left), windswept and open to the sea, serving a menu by Chef George Reid, with some of the best seafood I had on Anguilla, including local red snapper ($36), spiny lobster ($46 per pound), and crayfish ($30), along with silky, char-grilled octopus with an aïoli, capers and hot spicing.  You may well enjoy these simply grilled, but there are also eight different sauces you can add. The Parker House rolls are addictively good.  For dessert go with the Key lime tart and the crème brûlée.  Breakfast is also served at Coba, but be aware it is not complimentary with the room charge but a whopping surcharge of $36 plus 15% service charge.
    I didn’t stay at the newly refurbished  Malliouhana, an Auberge Resort which opened in 1984, set above rocky beach crags and ultramarine waters.  I did, however, enjoy Chef Marc Alvarez’s Caribbean menu at The Restaurant there (below), which impressed me most for the exquisite quality of the raw seafood, like conch and watermelon ceviche with spicy popcorn and cilantro ($14) and the mahi-mahi ceviche with lime and chile leche de tigre marinade and cassava chips ($14). Grilled octopus was excellent, too, served with yucca, heirloom chickpeas and a crumble of chorizo ($18).
        Among my favorite entrees was a pan-roasted snapper (left) with crisp bok choy, shrimp and plantains, and curry coconut emulsion ($37). A good choice is  sake-marinated and grilled ahi tuna with quinoa, braised greens and a spicy wasabi-soy vinaigrette ($37).  Triggerfish and spiny lobster were on the printed menu but not available that evening, which points back to the availability problem of seafood on the island and how the chef here won’t serve what is not freshest. For dessert you’ll like the apple and strawberry shortcake. Service was dismayingly slow throughout an evening with very few tables taken. The Restaurant has a first-rate wine list.
    Italian food of quality and authenticity is not that easy to come by on Anguilla, but Italia at the CuisinArt Golf & Spa Resort impressed me on both counts, although here, too, service was as slow as any I’ve experienced in the Caribbean.  (We waited 40 minutes for three pasta dishes.)  Fortunately, Chef Biaggia Lungo, from Sorrento, is very serious about his food, so bucatini alla carbonara (right), lasagna alla bolognese, and agnolottti stuffed with pumpkin in a butter and sage sauce were all delicious. The wine list is modest, and the Italian bottlings all too familiar.  You need not bother with the hum-drum desserts. Note that CuisinArt’s website says that a new menu will be in place November 1, so take my comments in the context of my springtime meal.
    Blanchard’s (below), which is unassociated with a resort, is on Meads Bay and has long been one of the upscale favorites of both transient visitors and local property owners, not least for  its daunting array of shelves stocked with rums from all over the Caribbean, and tasting flights—a good idea with dessert—are certainly encouraged.  The wine list has more than 500 selections; the average wine by the glass is $15, with a dozen half-bottles, and mark-ups are among the more reasonable I found on the island.  Bob and Melinda  (she’s the chef) Blanchard have run this colorful, cordial restaurant since 1994, and the ambiance on the dining patio, surrounded by a thicket of tropical greenery, has always been at its best at sunset.
    Our dinner’s highlights included corn chowder with vegetables ($16) and pappardelle pasta with the meat of pulled short ribs, olives, zucchini, peas and roast tomato ragôut (though at $38 a  high price). Sesame-crusted mahi-mahi with curried rice, caramelized onion, Saigon stir fry and Dijon caper sauce ($46) was all right, if overwrought.  There is also a three-course menu at $49 (plus 15% service charge).
    Prototypically Caribbean for its outdoor location—an afternoon shower broke out and soaked the patio tables while we were having lunch, which was not in the least disturbing in such a setting—is da’Vida’s outdoor restaurant, Bayside, which complements its more staid indoor restaurant open for dinner.
    The first thing to know about is the basket of johnnycakes ($2), like cornmeal bagels and absolutely addictive. This is a family place, popular after a swim or sun-bake. So there’s pizza and burgers. The grilled fish with Creole sauce ($25; right) is dependable if a little pricey.  Do share a warm brownie with ice cream ($8) or a very good carrot cake for dessert ($8). An ice cold beer goes best with this kind of food and sun.

NEW YORK CORNER
By John Mariani
Photos by Milica Koceva.

MARLOW BISTRO
1018 Amsterdam Avenue (near 109^th Street)
 212-662-9020

NOTES FROM THE WINE CELLAR
   

WHAT I'M DRINKING NOW
By John Mariani
 

Pieve Santa Restituta Brunello di Montalcino  2011 ($78)—Brunellos used to take a long, long time to mature, and there is still a good case to be made for that style, but, upon release, contemporary versions can have their charm. This example, from Gaja,  is not from a single vineyard but is a blend from the estate’s top growing sites in Sugarille, Santo Pietro, Castagno, and Pian dei Cerri.  It spent 12 months in barrique  and 12 months in botti (large thirty-year-old casks). I’d certainly wait for this 2011 to come around, but it’s worth sampling this year and seeing how it develops.

Domaine Drouhin Laurene Pinot Noir 2004 ($150)--I can't say I have much experience with 13-year-old Oregon Pinot Noirs, but given the provenance of this wonderful example, from Burgundy producer Joseph Drouhin, which was the first French company to see the possibilities in Oregon many year ago, I'm not at all surprised that it has held up as well as a fine Burgundy. It is a flagship cuvée (named after Véronique Drouhin's eldest daughter) from the best wine produced in a vintage from 32 different blocks in the Dundee Hills.  Drouhin says 2004 had an ideal growing season but low yield, spending 20 months in barrel before release in 2009.  Now in its second decade it proves the potential for Pinot Noir from the Pacific Northwest and should be a standard others should try to meet. By the way, the current 2014 vintage is out and costs about $75. 

Alain Graillot Crozes-Hermitage 2015 ($32)—Another style of Rhȏne wine, this from a very young—1985—domaine, where grapes are harvested by hand and the wines are aged in old Burgundy barrels.  Graillot is highly regarded among his colleagues in the Northern Rhȏne for the balance he achieves in his wines, so this is a red with plenty of flexibility when it comes to summer foods off the grill. 

Champagne Jean Laurent Blanc de Noirs Brut ($40)—Champagne, at least non-vintage, of real quality need not cost a fortune, as this lovely, full-fruited example proves.  You can readily find it—when you can find it—for less than $40, and it’s a real crowd pleaser, especially as an aperitif or a wine to go with poached fish. 

Viticcio Prunaio Chianti Classico Gran Selezione 2013 ($24)—The producer calls this “A Chianti Classico made unexpectedly in Super Tuscan style,” which apparently means no other traditional grapes were used in the blend, only Sangiovese Grosso selected clones, as in a Brunello or Vino Nobile. So does it qualify as a Chianti Classico?  The laws have been so bent in recent years that it’s hard not to be whatever a winery says it is.  Nevertheless, this is a fine red Tuscan wine by any name, aged in barriques for 18 months and then large barrels for six. Alcohol is 14%. 

Donelan Nancie Chardonnay 2014 ($48)—Producer Joe Donelan names this after his mother, Nancie, and it is made from grapes from three vineyards, one from Russian River using 30-year-old vines.  Ten months of aging in new oak and three years of age before release might seem to make the wine too woody, but there is a good amount of fruit and acid to make it a nice clean California-style Chardonnay, good to go with seafood of any kind. 

Votre Santé Pinot Noir 2015 ($18)—Don’t be fooled by the French name; this is an Anderson Valley appellation Pinot Noir but made as close as possible to a Burgundy style, with only 13.4% alcohol.  It spends 9 months in French oak and 30% in new oak, and wine maker François Cordesse (he’s definitely French) does not filter his Pinot Noir—tricky business for this finicky grape—so without upping the alcohol he gets good body and tannin with some varied spicy notes, ideal for lamb dishes.  By the way, this is one of Francis Ford Coppola’s many wine lines, this one paying tribute to his grandmother, Maria Zasa. 

Mount Veeder Reserve 2013 ($100)—The label calls this Bordeaux-style blend “red wine,” which sounds like something of an injustice at a $100 price tag.  It’s a complex and concentrated wine, with 14.5% alcohol, blended from 85% Cabernet Sauvignon, 9% Merlot, 4% Cabernet Fran and 2% Malbec.  The vineyards are at high elevation and the harvest was picked early, so you don’t get the jammy texture of so many Napa Cabernet blends.  I’m not sure about the statement that “a Mount Veeder harvest is a Zen-like art of moving across a three-dimensional chessboard,” but whatever it is, it works.  Bring out the porterhouse, open the bottle and chant “Om….” 

Mauritson Zinfandel 2014 ($35)—The vineyard was planted in 1884, so the family has a long history making Zinfandel at its best.  This is a luscious example, without  the cloying overripeness of so many others, despite a 14.7% alcohol level.  You should expect Zins to have this kind of body, but the harmony of the fruit and acids is as it should be.  It will take as well to barbecued meats as to roast prime rib and cheeses.

Dry Creek Vineyard Dry Chenin Blanc 2015 ($13)—What a great price for one of the most delicious Chenin Blancs out of Sonoma County!  It’s a grape too many vintners ignore, and even the better producers make grassy examples.  This is beautifully textured with the fruit abundant, showing the commitment of Dry Creek Valley, which has been making this wine since 1972.

Cobb Pinot Noir 2014 ($80)—Pricey, but a solid effort that shows the admirable Cobb style that begins with an effusive bouquet and a lighter-style lovely Pinot Noir flavor with substantial body that buoys it right through the long finish.  And it proves that a Pinot Noir at 12.5% alcohol can be far more enjoyable than those pushed above 14.5%.  A mature Pommard clone, planted in 1998, adds brightness to the wine.  It can age but it’s hard to pass up right now.  I drank it with black bass done on the grill and it worked well.

Saint Cosme 2015 ($19)—A pleasing, well-priced Cȏtes-du-Rhȏne, very creamy but with a big body and ruby color, from Gigondas, whose winery dates to two years before Columbus sailed the ocean blue. It’s made from 70% Grenache, 15% Syrah, 14% Mourvèdre and 1% Cinsault.  The fact that it’s unfiltered gives it that body in its youth, and it is a very good wine with pork dishes.