LA BELLE ILE LA B E L L E ILE

Sailing is integral to the island’s character, and the Bucket is a highlight in its busy cultural and sporting calendar. It began in 1995 with just four yachts and now draws between 30 to 40 superyachts to the competition. Someone who has been part of it since the beginning is legendary sailor Tom Whidden, a veteran of the America’s Cup and now executive chairman of North Sails. “All the sailors love it,” he says of the Bucket. “Many take part just because it’s in St Barths.” 

Why does he think that is? “Nowhere has its draw. The weather is fantastic, the sea is fantastic. The infrastructure can deal with lots of people descending on the island. Also, the hotels and restaurants are great, and everyone is so welcoming. St Barths has much more texture than anywhere else in the Caribbean. Plus, it’s way more eclectic, very bohemian and quite French. It’s got all the hot stores, it’s got rich and poor, dirty and clean, plus the beaches are beautiful and not crowded. It’s unbelievable.”

Famed chef and long-time island-dweller Jean-Georges Vongerichten, Eden Rock’s head of cuisine, agrees. “St Barths is very bohemian. I never wear shoes, but no one looks at me sideways. There are no private jets on the runway; we all arrive on the same kind of propeller plane and it quickly puts everyone on the same level.”

St Barths is more than just a beautiful Caribbean island with great beaches – it has many layers and differing landscapes, endless secret nooks and crannies, the lot inhabited by enterprising and idiosyncratic characters who live and work there all year. They are the ones responsible for shaping its many contours, both literally and metaphorically.

When I first visited, the fashionable rush we know today was in its infancy. That first year, I spotted Jay-Z and Beyoncé strolling unbothered in the port. Then one night we were invited, even though we’d never met him, to a party aboard Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen’s 126-metre Octopus. There were celebrities and magnates galore, including Jon Bon Jovi, Usher and Robert Downey Jr, as well as the art dealer Larry Gagosian, who has a house on the island.

The atmosphere was relaxed, chilled even, but above all thrilling, because unlike in places like Saint-Tropez, it felt as if we were cloistered in a secret corner of the world that no one knew about. Then, it was teeming with characters and quiet decadence. Over the years, the celebrity quotient has increased exponentially, peaking in the late 2000s when Roman Abramovich started throwing his New Year’s Eve parties at his house on Gouverneur Beach.

One year I danced with Demi Moore, Ashton Kutcher and Salma Hayek on stage with the Black Eyed Peas (who had just performed). I hung out with Jason Statham and Orlando Bloom, as well as the designer Marc Jacobs, and I chatted with music mogul Malcolm McLaren, Duran Duran’s Nick Rhodes and Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters. It felt surreal.

Celebrities apart, what I love most today is how its two most beloved hotels of old remain popular. The first is the aforementioned Eden Rock (owned since 1995 by the British Matthews family) on St Jean beach, where people flock daily to its Sand Bar for lunch and dinner, to be followed by a requisite cocktail in the Remy Bar.

The second is the Cheval Blanc (formerly known as the Isle de France) on Flamands, which was owned by another British couple, Charles and Melanie Vere Nicol. After selling it and the house next door to Russian ballet dancer Rudolph Nureyev, they bought Le Toiny, a stunning hotel on the largely uninhabited south-east coast, whose Beach Club is a lunch hot spot today.

St Barths now teems with new restaurants, but somehow the island’s spirit prevails. Must-visits include two originals: Le Ti, an old-fashioned French cabaret-style restaurant in Pointe Milou, founded by Carole Gruson in 1995. Semi-naked girls from the Crazy Horse in Paris dance on the tables after dinner, as do guests. “My restaurant gave Americans a liberty that didn’t exist in the US,” says Gruson. 

The other is Eddy’s Ghetto, also opened in 1995 in a tropical garden down a back street in Gustavia serving Creole food. 

Newer fashionable openings include the Parisian outpost of Fouquet’s in the Carl Gustav Hotel, the Greek-Mediterranean Shellona on Shell Beach and the Gyp Sea Beach Club in St Jean. Nowhere is more Saint-Tropez-like, with its DJs and extravagant cocktails, than La Petite Plage in Gustavia, where waiters dance nightly on the tables.

But if it’s chic, charming and fun you are looking for, then nowhere is better than Bonito. Make sure you ask for a table on the verandah for the best night-time views of Gustavia.

Or, for a more relaxed feel, try the more out-of-the-way but no less entertaining Le Tamarin or L’Esprit de Jean Claude Dufour (many consider the latter to be the finest dining on the island), both set in romantic tropical gardens close to Saline beach.