As has been historically the case, Barbados is one Caribbean island that suffered few ill effects from hurricanes--this year Irma and Maria--owing to its location in the Lesser Antilles east of the hurricane zone.  Thus, this story, based on a visit earlier this year, still holds true, making the island one of the few wholly open to visitors this season.

    No one knows quite why Barbados is named after “the bearded ones,” or even which European visitors first set foot on the island.  Nor has anyone traced the origin of the colloquial term “Bim” used by the locals for their island.  The Spanish and Portuguese nosed around the island, but after the British claimed it in 1625 as a colony,  dubbing it the “brightest jewel in the English crown,” the island was never afterwards invaded, and owing to its position in the Antilles, hurricanes rarely hit the island.

    Barbados is fairly large, with eleven parishes spread over 167 square miles, and there is scarcely a hilltop that does not offer a stunning view of the Caribbean. A day’s visit to the evocative capital city, Bridgetown (below), proves why it has been declared a UNESCO World Heritage site. The western side of the island is now slowly getting built up after downturns in the economy after 9/11 and the crash of 2008.  But today that side has earned the name “Platinum Coast” for the number of affluent homes and resorts that line sandy beaches.  Poverty still remains and unemployment is high, so consistent tourism is an essential industry for Barbados.

    There is a lovely Caribbean lilt in the “Bajan” (Bay-jun) Creole-English as spoken by the Barbadians—if you listen carefully you might hear it in the voice of the island’s most famous citizen, Rihanna, who was born in Saint Michael and raised in Bridgetown—and reggae music pours out of restaurants, seaside thatched-roofed bars, and shops along Bridgetown’s streets.  The houses and downtown buildings are painted every color of the rainbow that soaks in the sun to achieve a washed-out, toned down pastel patina.

    For lack of space I shall pass over the more obvious attractions available in various forms elsewhere in the Caribbean—snorkeling and scuba diving, catamarans and charter fishing, the Carlisle Bay Marine Reserve and Barbados Wildlife Preserve, horseracing and, in good British tradition, cricket matches.  Let me concentrate, instead, on Bridgetown itself, where I was fortunate to have an extraordinary guide named Morris Greenidge, historian and author of Bridgetown Barbados: A Walking Tour (2015), who was that rare amalgam of depthless knowledge and local lore combined with a palpable passion for his hometown.

    I met Greenidge at the harbor in town, a large, gray-haired man wearing suspenders and a straw-hat. From the moment I asked him a question I knew there was none he could not answer, always at great length.  He is as much an authority on the still controversial history of slavery in the Caribbean—after several revolts the trade was banished in 1834—as he is on how the original tobacco, cotton and indigo industries were replaced by the importation from Brazil of sugar cane, for which slave plantations were requisite.

    Greenidge has a story about every steeple, every house, every block of Bridgetown. There’s a spot on the corner of Palmetto where rum was developed; the site of the first and only synagogue (1654).  Over there is Cheapside, once the end of the Indian trail and where what used to be the “Kissing Bridge” arched the canal; there’s the site of the old hotel once run by a “most beautiful mulatto woman” named Caroline Lee, after whom they named a yellow sweet potato; Parliament Square with its statue of Lord Nelson and its House of Assembly with stained glass portraits of every British monarch from James I to Victoria; every block tells an old story and Greenidge knows them all, delivered in the calm, cadenced way of a man who still reveres so much of what has disappeared during and long before his lifetime.

    On my own I visited the beautiful St. Nicholas Abbey (right), one of only three remaining Jacobean houses in the entire Western Hemisphere, built in 1660 and now admirably maintained as a family home by architect Larry Warren, his wife, Anna, and their sons, Simon and Shae, who purchased the property in 2006 and impeccably restored its interiors and gardens.  The rooms are filled with impressive 18th century antiques, dining tables set with old china, Tudor arches, Chippendale staircases, and two bedroom floors.  There is also an outdoor café for a light lunch.

    On premises is also a working distillery (one of four on the island), whose award-winning rums include a five-, twelve- and eighteen-year-old you can purchase at the estate after watching the actual process of turning sugar cane into “Kill devil” rum in a copper still named Annabelle.

    (A visit to St. Nicholas Abbey makes one to the Mount Gay Distillery wholly unnecessary, for the latter’s tour is more of a commercial venture designed to “herd-‘em-in, give-‘em-a-tot, sell ‘em a t-shirt and bottle of rum” without actually showing the rum production.)

    Animal Flower Cave (left) in St. Lucy parish on the northern tip of Barbados is well worth a trip. You descend steep wooden stairs to a cave whose sea anemones give it its name, whereupon you gaze out a jagged rip of rock to the sea as the waves dash themselves against the opening. Be sure to wear shoes that can grip the very slippery rocks; I thought I did but still dashed myself against the rocks, and, though unharmed, I wondered how long it would take a rescue party to get me out of there had I broken a few bones.

    Far grander and different than the Animal Flower Cave is Harrison’s Cave (right), known since 1785 but for centuries impenetrable. It was opened by the Barbados government in 1981 to the public, and there are now tours throughout the day in guided tram cars that wind through 1.5 miles of still active caverns, meaning that water is still creating, drop by drop, the stalactites and stalagmites of wondrous beauty, one outcropping unlike any other.  You rise, then descend deeper and deeper before emerging into the light again. There are some tours that delve farther into more cramped spaces, and, if you’re so inclined, you can even get married in them.

    If you Go

Barbados’s currency is tied to the U.S. dollar at a rate of one US$ to two Barbados dollars. There is a VAT tax of 17.5% at hotels and restaurants, and a 10% service charge is added to your hotel bill; tipping at a restaurant is 10-15%.

 

NEW YORK CORNER
By John Mariani

FLAMES STEAKHOUSE
121 EAST MAIN STREET
ELMSFORD, NY
914-592-3500

   

 

    It is a general rule among all restaurants that a menu has both high quality and lesser quality dishes, which is especially the case with American steakhouses, where the menus do not radically differ one from another.

    Thus, after saying the beef is of excellent quality, one might find that the hash browns are not up to snuff or the desserts are mere afterthoughts and the wine list all too familiar. Rare is the steakhouse where every item on the menu is at the same standard of quality.
    The new Flames Steakhouse in Elmsford, a suburb of NYC in Westchester County, achieves that standard and does so at prices a bit lower than what you’d expect in Manhattan. Owner and executive chef Nikolla Vulaj, originally from Montenegro, has had decades to attain then maintain a place in the first rank of TriState area steakhouses, having opened his first in 1992 in Briarcliff, N.Y., also in Westchester County (now owned by others under the name Flames Bar and Grill). Now just two months old, the new  
      Flames is already a restaurant worth seeking out whether or not you live in the ‘burbs. It’s a handsome three-room affair: A spacious lounge with a curving marble bar and dark woods is well stocked, and the bartender pays attention to how you order your cocktail; the main dining room, with an impressive marble fireplace, soft overhead lighting, dark wainscoting, very comfortable chairs, tilted mirrors and white tablecloths has a civilized but unpretentious cast, well served by a staff of veterans who work in teams. There are walls stocked with wine, about 250 selections and growing, and Vulaj knows every one of them well. To the right is another, brighter room.

    There are fine little touches like the presentation of a good loaf of bread and a big slab of butter, along with hot potato chips cooked in beef fat

that adds decided flavor.

    I’ll get to the quality of the meat in a moment, but one item in particular among the appetizers typifies Vulaj’s commitment to buying the best. At better steakhouses a crabmeat cocktail ($21.95) might—if you’re lucky—be made with jumbo size lump crab, but it is extremely rare when, as at Flames, you get a generous portion of colossal crabmeat (left), which wholesale runs $36 per pound.

    The same goes for the extra large shrimp ($19.50), twin lobster tails ($54), and the ingredients in the salads. The eggplant rollatini ($12.95) with prosciutto and melted fontina in a light tomato-tinged cream sauce is very  good, and I cannot think of a more classic rendering of spaghetti alla carbonara—no cream, no onions, no parsley—than I’ve had at Flames, and the portion will easily feed two ($26.95).

    The veal chop with mushrooms ($48.95) weighs in at about 16 ounces, and the American rack of lamb is comprised of four beautifully trimmed chops. Lobsters of various sizes—three to four pounds (MP)—are either expertly broiled or steamed, served with a ramekin of clarified butter.
    Flames carries the usual cuts of beef, from filet mignon ($48.95) to porterhouses cut for two to four people ($98 to $188), and over many years of eating beef at Vulaj’s restaurants, I know that he searches out the best USDA Prime he can get his hands on, and his kitchen knows how to give them a good char while keeping the juices inside. He also serves Japanese wagyu beef (MP) when available, and if that’s your idea of gluttony, you might as well go with it here.

    Side dishes get just as much care, from creamed spinach ($8) that seems equal parts cream, butter and spinach, lightly seasoned, to various

kinds of potatoes, though I think the mashed potatoes ($8)—starchy on a recent visit—need work.

    One of the desserts that’s always been a crowd pleaser is the zucchino ($10), a very rich layering of reduced English cream, white chocolate and mocha mousse and meringue.

    I am guessing that the reason that Flames Steakhouse is such a bright, new example of its genre may be due to Vulaj’s short retirement from the business, so that, as so often happens with restaurateurs, he couldn’t stay away and has re-entered it with a whole new spirit and buoyant attitude to make it better than ever.

Flames is open for lunch and dinner Tues.-Sun.

NOTES FROM THE WINE CELLAR