La Marine

This is the Thursday night place to go. That is the night the mussels arrive and everyone has moules frites. My dinner was excellent  my only gripe was that they served the fries out of a communal plate (I could have eaten them all myself!). This is the most classic (i.e. least trendy) place that Carol Gruson owns. The building has been there forever and its always been the home to one restaurant or another. It used to be the old marina building (before they built the new one) and you dine amongst the sailboats.

We spent New Years Eve on St Barths in a charming villa with our 3 children. Weve been there 3 times and just love it. La Marine was the last of 14 restaurants we visited and, by far the worst. Even with early evening reservations, we were placed in an empty restaurant right next to the kitchen. Service was dismal. They served cold snails that caused one of my girls to make a hasty visit to the bathroom. The fish was dry, cold, and tasteless. One daughter ordered a fish dish what was supposed to be prepared in papyrus  it came in Reynolds Wrap looking like it was a hastily wrapped leftover. It was inedible. The best part was that our waiter actually forgot about our main courses and cleared the table after our appetizers  he brought out desert menus. We reminded him that we had not yet been served the main courses we had ordered an hour before. 15 minutes later he came with the cold dead fish. This is an island for eating well. La Marine simply does not belong.