One Year Ago Exactly We Were Cooking Up A Storm At Jade Mountain

It seems odd in this, of all years, that a whole 365 days have passed since I was attending a cookery class at Jade Mountain. It was a wonderful afternoon spent in what must be one of the the loveliest classrooms in the world…

Actually, it was the Jade Mountain restaurant perched 100s of feet above the southern St Lucia bay that also plays host to the lovely little town of Soufriere. I forget the name of the chef - which is a shame as he was a great guy and wholly inspirational. Perhaps hotel staff will kindly remind me. I even forget what we learned to cook.

It’s been a long, long year. But now, as the cold damp of December really descends on my valley, I kind of yearn for a quick blast of this paradise…

There were prawns and fabulous tropical fruits and a banana dish. And I don’t normally like bananas, but I liked what we cooked that afternoon.

Anyway, here is the travel article I wrote at the time…

Perhaps it has something to do with the landscape - few places on Earth are as dramatically picturesque as South Western St Lucia where 2500-foot mountains rise straight out of the clear blue waters of the Caribbean Sea.

Then there’s simply the fact that the people who run the twin Jade Mountain and Anse Chastanet resorts have been working for the family-owned concern for a long time. They are highly trained, know what they are doing and have won countless awards.

But maybe the underlying reason why the two resorts are often named in lists highlighting the top 10 tropical hotels in the world is because there’s a blend of all these things and a lot more besides. 

For example, both the neighbouring resorts - perched on their steep hillside above an azure bay - meld effortlessly into that remarkable landscape. Both feature open-sided suites or ‘sanctuaries’ as they are called at Jade - which mean that this landscape is part of the room you stay in.  The vertiginous rainforest is as much part of your stay as the four poster bed...

Few hotels can boast such a thing - even in the tropics - but then, few hotels were the dream of the architect who planned them, owns them and whose family runs them.

It was architect Nick Troubetzkoy who designed these dream-like resorts - his wife Karolin has the upper hand when it comes to the day to day running of both establishments. 

This scenic corner of St Lucia began life as a holiday designation in the 1970s when the Caribbean was waking up to the idea of jet-engine inspired tourism.  It’s easy to imagine the scenario… Take a picturesque fishing village nestled above its own white-sand, palm-strewn, beach under some dramatic looking mountain-scapes. Find another white sand beach tucked away from town just around the corner and erect some holiday villas in the steep rainforest just above the seaside coconut palms.

Add a beachside restaurant and begin schooling and training some bright and friendly local people to work at the resort. That way, you are getting the combination just right from day one.  You have a dream landscape second to none which wealthy people can afford to reach - and you have the all important local element which allows your resort to have that much sought-after laid-back Caribbean feel.

My fabulous tropical room at Anse Chastanet

Then use some of the land you own to start a farm where all the veg, herbs, fruit and flowers used at your resort can be grown. That means training and employing more local people. 

So in the end, you might as well build a second resort higher up in the rainforest. And because you are going to all the trouble and financial pain to do this, you may as well design it yourself, seeing that you are an award-winning architect. In fact, you may as well make it to be like no other hotel in the world - seeing that it is your dream and you are paying for it. 

Why not make each suite a sanctuary, which has its own infinity pool stretching out towards that impossibly fabulous view? Why not erect the whole thing to be like a natural cliff rising out of the rainforest so that each and every suite can share that amazing view without any hit getting in the way? So what if each sanctuary requires a bridge to reach it - you can tell guests that the beginning of that bridge is the start of the escape into paradise. 

Which is exactly how it is. I know that because I have been lucky enough to stay at Jade Mountain on a couple of occasions over the past 12 years. Indeed, I was there just a couple of weeks after it opened and I still remember how my jaw dropped when I entered one of those sanctuaries and saw the capital M-shaped twin peaks known as The Pitons reflecting like a capital W in the interior infinity pool.

My patent in-built “wow-ometer” went deep into the red back then - and it was still doing so 12 years later when I stayed at Jade Mountain recently. You can never, ever, fail to be wowed by that view and by the fact that your sanctuary has no wall, sliding doors or french windows to get in the way of the panorama, There’s just fresh warm tropical air - and you can swim from your bedside out towards those twin mountains and reach the edge where you can look down 400 feet at the beach far below. 

No wonder this place never fails to feature in listings naming the most beautiful hotels in the world. No wonder big name celebrities flock to stay here.  No wonder that some of them never venture out of their sanctuaries during their stay - which is easy to do as each has a dedicated butler who will look after your every need. 

In nearly 40 years of travel writing, I have never been in, or seen, a place like it. Jade Mountain is very, very special in so many ways. It serves amazing homegrown food. The staff - most of whom are local - are among the best trained, most polite and most friendly you’ll encounter anywhere. Everything from the sheets on the four-poster to the art work, to the estate grown chocolate in the sanctuary fridge is top of the range and exactly what you need. 

But to be honest, if you got rid of all of that and were just left with that infinity pool stretching out into the sky and ending in that view - then you’d always mark out this place as being a cut above the rest. 

And it literally is above Anse Chastanet. In altitude, I mean - but some would say in class and desirability. I wouldn’t. Yes, Jade is a more expensive. Yes it has butlers, infinity pools and the like. But I have always liked Anse Chastanet just as much. 

There is something more homely and more initiate about this older resort perched on the lower slopes much closer to the sea and that fabulous beach. In your individual bungalow or accommodation unit (they are separate and all different in shape and size) you feel like you are part of the rainforest as opposed to hovering above it. 

You can hear the night noises which all tropical forests boast and the Caribbean waves lapping on the sand below. You can sit out on your veranda or lie in bed (because the accommodation also has an open wall feature) and feel like some Somerset Maugham character gently sweating in the heat of a Caribbean night, sipping wine or rum under your fan and allowing a cooling breeze to bring the night scents into your dream world. 

For that, in essence, is the short description of a stay at either Jade Mountain or Anse Chastanet. You find yourself in a tropical dream world. One which has been carefully designed do that sea breezes keep you cool rather than air conditioning. You are surrounded by the friendliest staff imaginable who also seem to remember your name and who certainly all know what they are doing. The Troubetzkoys employ some 600 mainly local people and they are good and schooling them and caring for their welfare. 

Spend any time at Jade or Anse Chastanet and you quickly begin to think this is how all Caribbean resorts should be, as opposed to some of the big chain owned places which are about as environmentally sustainable as a gas guzzling V8. The Troubetzkoys have designed and built one of the most beautiful resorts on Earth in one of the most beautiful places on the planet, and they go to great lengths to run their paradise sustainably and sensibly. 

For example, apart from growing all their own fruit and veg and making chocolate from their own cocoa trees, they even train and pay local fishermen to catch the invasive lion-fish which are destroying Caribbean reefs and all their indigenous life. The twin resorts then stage special lion-fish dinners, which is a good thing because this unwanted pest happens to be delicious to eat. 

No big chain-owned resort or hotel would ever do that. But then, big corporations are notorious for ignoring a sense of localness at any level. All of which is why I say that if I had the opportunity to visit the Caribbean just once on a single, very special, holiday, then I’d have no hesitation in recommending Jade Mountain or Anse Chastanet for your stay. When it comes to location, location, location, this place ticks every box going.