The first thing that will impress when you start to move around Anguilla is just how clean and colorful the beaches are to your eye. There are always three perfect monochromatic bands of color that one keeps coming across on Anguilla’s beaches: a band of perfect white-powdered sand, a perfect band of turquoise-colored ocean water, and a band of light blue sky which is dotted with the occasional white of a passing cloud. Washing across these three bands of color are the green of palm frawns and the white and bamboo of beach umbrellas. In short, the beaches of Anguilla are some of the best I’ve seen anywhere.
The restaurants on Anguilla aren’t bad either. For such a small island there are plenty of places to eat, some cheap and excellent, some expensive and bad. My recommendation when eating in Anguilla is to go to a place that serves the food straight. Don’t go to a restaurant that serves crazy combinations of food. The quality of the food - especially seafood - on Anguilla means you don’t have to change the flavor of the original ingredients very much. Go with food that is straight and well-cooked while on Anguilla; you can’t go wrong if you do.
Anyway, back to beaches and restaurants.
My favorite restaurant on Anguilla was a place called Trattoria Tramonto The trattoria is located on Shoal Bay (West). The trattoria serves Italian food done with just the right amount of flavor and seaside atmosphere. Nice staff, the prices are high but the trattoria is right on the beach with a great view to the ocean. You can have a nice plate of pasta or antipasto. All of the food we ate here was good. Wine list is also very good. The beach at Shoal Bay (West) is pretty, if a little remote. The Covecastles Resort is located right next door as is Chuck Norris’s old house.
My second favorite restaurant on Anguilla was a small place on Meads Beach called Bananas by the Sea. Again a very nice spot to look out over the water and enjoy the views of the clean beach and water. The best dishes here are the shrimp salad and hamburger. Another popular restaurant on Meads Beach - and maybe the most famous on Anguilla - is Blanchards. I liked Meads Beach but there was a little too much construction going on near and around the beach. Anguilla is slowly and painfully going through a property boom which is making many expats on the island a little grumpy towards the newer expats – this is a dynamic you find everywhere, but especially on small Caribbean islands.
(Photo opposite: View from Trattoria Tramonto) The beach that I visited the most on Anguilla was Rendezvous Beach. The CuisinArt Resort is located here as well as the Anguilla Great House Hotel. Both have nice restaurants. CuisinArt has great salads; vegetables are hydroponically grown on the resort. I only ate at the poolside restaurant – called Mediterraneo - but there is also an upscale place called Santorini. If you come to the Rendezvous Beach be sure to have a drink at the bar on the beach. Garvey is the bartender’s name and he serves a good drink as well as playing some very good music - he was one the friendliest people I met on Anguilla.
Shoal Beach (East) is one of the more active beaches on Anguilla and it is also the beach where the Ku Hotel is located. The resort is very low-key place with a good beachside restaurant and bar. Come here if you want to people watch. Uncle Ernie’s restaurant is also very good and less expensive than most of the places you’ll find on the island.
Sandy Ground is yet another beautiful spot on Anguilla and the home of a number of very good places to eat. The best were Barrel Stay and Johnno’s Place, both are unpretentious and low-key and very friendly. There is also a nice restaurant that overlooks Sandy Ground called Flavors which is a place you should visit if you like seafood.
(Photo opposite: Bay at Sandy Ground) Barnes Bay was a beach I only saw during the night, so I have no idea what it looks like during the day. There is a lively restaurant on Barnes Bay called Mangos. Seafood is the specialty and a very good wine list. Come here if you want to eat and hear music.
The restaurants that I ate at that didn’t strike me very much, but you might like were:
Veya – Fusion Food
Straw Hat – the location of this restaurant is excellent
Picante – Mexican place
While I was on Anguilla I asked some of the local people where I should eat if I didn’t want to drop a lot of cash and they recommended a very good place to me:
The English Rose is a very good restaurant located in The Valley in Anguilla. The Valley is the main commercial center on the island.
As I drove through The Valley, I did see a broken down Chinese Restaurant that you might want to hit if you get sick of all the fine dining, but more on that from my next visit to Anguilla.
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