Cayman Islands?

Does anyone have recommendations for restaurants on Grand Cayman? We are staying in a condo on 7 mile beach. We are up for anything local or unique, no italian, or american. We also will have an infant with us, so nothing too upscale.
Thanks,
LO

I used to make regular trips to Cayman. There really aren't any destination restuarants that I can recall, but there are some better than others. I can particularly recommend the Grand Old House if, for nothin else, it's history. Here is a listing of Grand Cayman Restaurants. Hopefully, this will help you out.

We were in Grand Cayman last Dec/Jan and had a great time. Altho many of the restaurants were still closed due to Hurricane Ivan, we managed to hit a few good ones worth mentioning. The Reef Grill was excellent - kinda upscale, but the food was very good as was the atmosphere. We had New Years Eve dinner at the Grand Old House - very nice, we ate outdoors on the ocean front, food was excellent and the place had a lot of character. More casual is Coconut Joes right on 7 Mile Beach - the scene is like a T.G.I. Fridays, but kids are welcome. Ragazzi's Ristorante is also very good - I know you mentioned "no Italian" but they make great wood-fired pizzas and the rest of their fare is excellent as well - we went there twice! Refer to the restaurant link in the previous post for some more ideas. Be warned however, food and drink are $$$ in Grand Cayman, but what the heck, you're on vacation!

Corita's Copper Kettke serves an excellent breakfast. For dinner, we enjoyed The Lobster Pot. Visit the Tortuga Factory store for free samples of Tortuga Rum Cake and Tortuga Fruit Punch. Don't forget to visit "Hell," snorkel "the wall" off Parrot's Landing and "The Cemetery," and swim with the stingrays.

Heading to Grand Cayman's 7 mile beach next week for spring break. Any more recent experiences? We are renting a "villa" so we will have a kitchen, so any grocery ideas would be great too.

Thanks, Will

We were undewhelmed by the food there in November 2005 and many places were still closed/rebuilding b/c of the previous years hurricane. It is *very* expensive overall. We also stayed on 7 mile, so mainly ate around there, as we didn't have a car. Coconut Joe's was kid friendly, decent bar-type food and had a nice outdoor patio. We went to the Wharf our last night, b/c my mom wanted to go there. Nice seating oustide, right by the water, but lousy food. I had the lobster tail/turtle steak combo, which was all overcooked and bland. In one of the strip malls on 7 mile there is an Irish bar Fidel Murphys that Gourmet had rated on of the best lamb stews- I disagree, tasteless overall and the meat was tough. In that same mall though, was the best meal we had, it was some sort of buffet of carribean type food. We were there as it opened, so it was all very fresh and had a good selection of chicken, goat, plaintain and had a tasty turtle soup you could order on the menu. Ragazzi had a decent lunch of a calamari salad. There is a takeout chicken place that had a decent jerk chicken.
There is a grocery store on 7 mile towards Georgetown, and one the other way as well. If you want to drink good wine in your villa, bring your own, or you will spend a ton of $$$.
LO

Quick report on our trip. The food overall was excellent, but very expensive. Most noteworthy was Eric Ripert's Blue at the Ritz Carleton. 7 courses with wine for about $180 was a splurge, but about the best seafood I have ever had. The Sunday brunch at the Cracked Conch was excellent, with both red and white conch chowders as well as a very thick conch stew with the biggest, most tender pieces of conch I have ever had. We ate twice at the Wharf, which is a beautiful spot right on the water. Very tasty turtle steaks, which the waiter described as tasting like "weal." After some back and forth, I realized he was trying to say veal, and it wasnt far off. Perhaps a bit more flavorful, but similar to cutlets pounded thin. The Calypso Grill had very fresh fish, and was a good choice for lunch.

-Will

stevez wrote:I used to make regular trips to Cayman. There really aren't any destination restuarants that I can recall, but there are some better than others. I can particularly recommend the Grand Old House if, for nothin else, it's history.

I wholeheartedly agree with Stevez here. I had two dinners here with my family on a vacation a few years back - dining al fresco is quite nice as they offer a wonderful view of the sea.



My apologies for the "artsy fartsy" outdoors picture; I was fiddling with my camera settings. I thought it was a good approximation of what you'd see from the restaurant, though.




Alternatively, dining inside is equally enjoyable. It really is an old house refurbished into a restaurant... personality just leaking out of every corner.






The following entree and dessert are no longer available on the menu - it has been two years, after all. Unfortunately, I cannot remember what either are... but they look pretty!





648 South Church Street
George Town, Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands
+1 (345) 949-9333

We were very pleased with the food at Bob Soto's Lobster Pot Restaurant. The turtle soup was fabulous, as was "The Pot." A piece of Tortuga rum cake is a must for dessert. www.lobsterpot.ky

wlingjpera,

That dish you posted looks like grouper served in what they call Caribbean Style (or maybe it was island style). I seem to remember that same dish from my visits even longer ago than yours.

On second thought, after looking at the picture a little closer, perhaps they called this something like Asian style, since I see little baby corns.

Grand Cayman ’08: A Rum-In-Cheek Report

I returned recently from 6 days in Grand Cayman. The island is mostly revamped after being devastated by 2004’s Hurricane Ivan, though I was told that there were parts of the island (not the touristy parts) that were still in need of dire repair. But you won’t notice it if you’re sticking to Seven Mile Beach.

It is an interesting time to travel to the Caribbean. It was reported in this Sunday's Tribune that the main carrier to the Caribbean, American Airlines, will cut its flights to there by at least a third, commencing September 1. Thus, it will be more expensive to fly there and require more advanced booking. The net effect is that the price of resorts on the islands will decrease, because they are islands after all, and rely upon the airlines in getting overnight visitors there.

Given that it is technically hurricane season (but only the beginning), I was the unwitting beneficiary of good timing and snagged an excellent last minute deal to Grand Cayman. Normally, I’m an intrepid traveler. I like museums, architecture, culture, and most importantly, local food and drink. But this vacation was solely for relaxation, or in my mindset, to not lift a finger unless desired. I didn’t even want the specter of possible culture or tourist destinations to tempt me out of my sun-induced coma. Therefore, oddly (for me), my choice to go to Grand Cayman was influenced by the general lack of culture, the resort (the very excellent Ritz-Carlton), and the world-renowned beaches and natural beauty (world-renowned with good reason). Also, the possibility of snorkeling, something Cayman is also known for, much more so prior to Ivan, which devastated a lot of the reefs. (I was even too lazy to think about scuba-diving; but it’s also known for good dives as well.)

Really, Grand Cayman is all about Seven Mile Beach:


Seven Mile Beach at Sunset

The water is clean, crystal-clear, and smooth. There are few rocks and the sand is soft and white. The water is so clear that, while swimming in the deep end of the swimming area, I could see a sting ray swimming below me, with its friend, Tuna. It was a very communing-with-nature experience.

I was told by a resort employee that Grand Cayman is a very religious island. (I'm sure by religious, she meant, by Caribbean standards. I mean, I didn’t exactly get the papal feel that one gets in Italy.) Although, yes, I saw a lot of churches on the island, the Cayman's religious devotion extends to such strict soul-cleansing deprivations as banning casinos and the sale of alcohol past midnight Saturday (that is, until it goes back up for sale on Sunday). I also hear tell of pornographic magazines occasionally being confiscated if discovered during a random customs search going into Cayman (horror!). In short, Cayman ain't Vegas, but it ain't Iran either.

In essence, Cayman heavily relies upon nearby Cuba and Jamaica for everything. Because everything has to be flown in, food and drink are very expensive. But that didn’t stop me from becoming mildly obsessed with rum. (It’s vacation, after all!) Cayman’s rum producer is Tortuga. Tortuga shows up mostly as a well rum here. I asked a resort bartender which rum he liked better, Tortuga or Mount Gay (from Barbados), he quickly answered “Mount Gay, of course!” as if it was a trick question. His disloyalty aside, you’ll find that most bartenders use Tortuga in most rum-based drinks here, no doubt due to its relative low cost. On occasion, you’ll see Cuba’s Havana Club used as the default rum.

So what’s to drink here? A lot of mojitos, as Cuba is a distinct cultural influence.

What the hell is this, you ask? [“They’d never serve that at The Violet Hour!”]



It is a frozen mango “mojito.” (Quotes are mine.) And it was a damn fine refreshing drink, even though it was (a) frozen; (b) inauthentic; and (c) made with Tortuga rum. In fact, it was my lunch-time sustenance.

There were others. Like these:


Mojito (L), Pina Colada (R)

These were from a different bar, and Havana Club was the well-rum there, although the Pina Colada you see was also “swirled” with Myers’ Dark Rum. Both also damn fine drinks.

I also tried the “Yellow Bird,” made with rum, Galliano, creme de banana, pineapple and orange juice, and the “Cayman Mama,” made with Tortuga Gold rum, Tortuga Coconut rum, and pineapple juice. [I’m sure I tried other tropical drinks but I can’t now remember what those were, hee hee.] Back on the mainland in Chicago, these drinks would seem revolting to me, but I decided to go whole hog, so to speak, and embrace my inner Polynesian (assuming I even had one).

My rum obsession was interrupted only occasionally when Seymour, the Coconut Water guy, came round:




Coconut Water

* * *

I did eat. Although the food is expensive, everything I had was well-prepared, if lacking in variety. You’ll see a lot of jerk spicing here, which I didn’t mind, a lot of seafood, which is mostly local (save for that pesky, ubiquitous Chilean seabass) and a lot of pork, for meat.

I had a very fine meal at the Grand Old House, mentioned upthread by stevez. The table was situated near the water. In the water below our table, the tarpon waited for their nightly feeding. (They’re a little difficult to see.)



Although the plating and saucing here is a bit heavy handed, all meats and seafood were perfectly cooked and the flavors were nicely balanced.

A pork loin, jerk-style, tended toward the high end of the capsaicin meter, but the sweet rum sauce balanced it out.


Pork Tenderloin, jerk style, rum sauce, fried plaintain garnish and vegetables

A lobster-tail was served “island-style” and was also delicious.


Lobster tail, Island-style

Desserts were fine, although again plated with a heavy hand:


Frozen Mango Souffle


Chocolate-Banana Rum Bread Pudding

As you can see from the plates, GOH is celebrating 100 years. I think the highlights of the meal, however, were the ocean-side setting on the well-appointed deck and seeing the shark that attacked a few of the tarpon during their feeding.

I didn’t eat at Blue, Eric Ripert’s restaurant because I just didn’t feel like sitting down to a focused, multicourse meal. And the restaurant isn’t water-side.

But I did eat two meals at his casual outpost, Periwinkle, also located in the Ritz-Carlton resort. This is a fine, Mediterranean-inspired restaurant. Although it, too, is pricey, it is way better than it has to be. I’m sure a lot of people go off resort to Ragazzi’s for Italian food. Although I didn’t eat at Ragazzi’s, I find it hard to believe that a meal there is better than at Periwinkle.


Capricciosa Pizza, Periwinkle


Portabello Mushroom Gnocchi, Periwinkle

While I don’t have any pictures, I did have a better-than-expected meal at The Wharf. It’s not the fanciest place, but it is quite a bit cheaper than the Grand Old House and its progeny (although certainly no bargain). Both The Wharf and Grand Old House have some type of Austrian connection as workers at both places were Austrian. (The GOH’s connection is formal – the Austrian consulate is located inside the GOH.) Thus, there was a surprising proliferation of Austrian wines on their menus, mostly from the Wienvertel region. The Wharf also has a deck overlooking Seven Mile Beach.

If you do find yourself here and staying at the Ritz, on Monday nights, the resort hosts a beach-side Caribbean themed buffet, which was actually quite good. And I'm not a buffet person.



The buffet had very tender jerk chicken (dark meat only), plantains, beans and rice, an assortment of salads, a raw bar, and the piece de resistance, a dessert spread with, among other things, an assortment of delectable mini cakes. Here were some of my favorites:


Assorted Rum Cakes


Pineapple Upside Down Cakes

The dessert chef was also flambéing bananas with rum (of course!), which were garnished with ice cream and bits of ripened coconut. Normally, I wouldn’t go in for a hotel-organized event like this, but it was Monday, I was feeling lazy, and we didn’t feel like shelling out for a cab to take us off the resort.

* * *

As inferred above, if you’re looking to go to a place to experience authentic, indigenous food specialties and explore the local culture, then you’ll probably be disappointed with Grand Cayman. But if you do find yourself there, with some digging, I think you'll find that you'll eat well.

I took a little bit of the Caymans back with me. Here is my kitty after hitting the duty-free:



They will join their brothers and sisters Rum in the liquor cabinet, where they will reside happily.

Just got back from a long, last minute weekend trip to the Caymans. There were some good deals offered, no doubt because of the toxic economy, and it's an easy trip from here in Florida.

Tourism is down here as you can imagine and everyone was complaining about the sad state of tourism now. That being said, we had a wonderful time and would return in a minute.

We had an outstanding dinner at Blue, in the Ritz Carlton, but it comes at a very, very heavy price. The restaurant is beautiful and the fish is first rate. Wine prices are outrageous. We also enjoyed the Grand Old House. I believe we must have had the same table as aschie because we enjoyed the same view of those tarpon. The tarpon enjoyed the house bread more than we did.

We stayed at the Westin, which served a very good Sunday brunch. The other lunch we enjoyed was in Georgetown, at Breezes By The Bay. It's a nice spot with outside seating overlooking the harbor and they served some very good mussels marinara and mahi mahi ceviche.

Happy New Year lth'ers. Heading to Grand Cayman in February and staying at the Westin. Has anyone stayed on the island recently? Any and all updates across the price spectrum would be much appreciated, but conch shacks and low-key rum bars are what I'm mostly after. Thanks.

CoolerbytheLake wrote: Has anyone stayed on the island recently?

I was there about a year ago and my best meal without a doubt was at The Brasserie. It is definitely not a conch shack place (it's in more of an office park location) but if you ever want a break from that this would be the go to. The location is nondescript but the interior is quite cozy and comfortable. The restaurant has 2 private fishing boats that catch most of the seafood used in the restaurant each day, and there is a large garden in back that sources much of the produce. The freshness and quality of the fish and produce definitely showed. I had the 5 course tasting menu, which at 70 CI was a bargain, but they have plenty of a la cart options as well. Also, on week nights there are specials like Pizza Fridays and taco Thursdays which you can get some great deals but enjoy the same high quality food.

As far as conch shack type places I don't recall anything to notable. I recall going to a place called Da Fish Shack which had a nice outdoor patio right on the water, but the food wasn't too good. A nice spot to grab a drink though. There is a place called Rackams which is also right on the water which is supposed to have decent food. I only had a drink there, but my girl friend enjoys their jerk chicken sandwich.

Enjoy your trip, I think it is warmer than -12 degrees there!

I spent a couple of days solo on Grand Cayman last month. I went pretty light on the food (yogurt from the grocery, etc.) except for splurging at brunch at Seven on Sunday before I left.

Brunch at Seven, Ritz Carlton.
Expensive - US$131 all in including bottled water and all the Tattinger and/or bloody marys you care to drink. I thought the food was of high quality and interesting variety. Very little "breakfast" out, although I saw people being brought eggs and toast if they wanted it. Mostly savory, I especially liked their cured meats and their shellfish selection. The only weak link was the carved meats, but several of the prepared main courses were very good. Dessert was your typical mix of the little stuff they make for wedding receptions. The service was excellent, as one would expect. They appear to only do one seating, as when I arrived the podium had the entire place marked out on a printout. They had presence of mind to put me (as a single diner) near the window so I could look out over the ocean and parts of Eric Ripert's blowout cookout (for which i was in no mood to pay $300/meal).

Even at that price point, I'd go back. Would it really be less expensive in Manhattan?

Dukes', top end of Bay Road - It's Red Stripe and some jerk chicken, sitting outside and trying to watch the NBA on a broken flatscreen TV set. Nothing special, chicken was a little dry. Started off with a dozen cold peel-and-eat which were perfectly fine. Would have stayed longer but it was my arrival day and I'd been up since 4am, so 90 minutes was about my limit. I am sure I could have done better, but I a bit too tired to try and it had been pouring when I got to the island.

KARoo, Caymana Bay Most of the Caymana Bay places closed early on Saturday for the Cookout-related events. KARoo had some very pleasant outside seating. I had a good salad, but nothing I couldn't find at 20 places in DuPage county. Then again, i couldn't have found the view or the weather in DuPage county.... If you're looking for a place on Bay Road, they are owned by the company which owns Decker's.

Gelato & Co., Caymana Bay Finished off lunch with a very tasty mix of banana and caramel gelato.

aschie30 wrote:I took a little bit of the Caymans back with me. Here is my kitty after hitting the duty-free:



They will join their brothers and sisters Rum in the liquor cabinet, where they will reside happily.

Are you a US resident? If I'm reading your booze bottles correctly, some are from Cuba. I was under the belief that Americans could not bring back items made in Cuba.

aschie30 wrote:
As inferred above, if you’re looking to go to a place to experience authentic, indigenous food specialties and explore the local culture, then you’ll probably be disappointed with Grand Cayman. But if you do find yourself there, with some digging, I think you'll find that you'll eat well.

This was our experience years ago, some very high prices for ok food, nothing great.

this said, we are going back towards end of December this year.
-

terrific trip and very inexpensive as we were fortunate enough to find a 2 BR condo at Plantation Village (condo/timeshare complex on 7 Mile Beach) for $900 for a week during high season. Condo had fully equipped kitchen & there are 4 large gas grills located at Plantation Village.

Therefore we did a lot of cooking in.

We shopped at both single location Kirk market http://kirkmarket.ky/ & Fosters http://fosters-iga.com/fff/ which has a number of locations. We preferred Kirk and found no real cost savings by shopping at Fosters. I'd give the nod to Kirk's for being more upscale.

Fisherman bring in their local catch which is cleaned up under a tent along the water, right by Cassanova by the Sea Restaurant in downtown Georgetown. Fresh snapper, trigger, wahoo, barracuda just to name a few varieties we saw & purchased. The barracuda was an AMAZING fish, fantastic flavor/texture. The wahoo & barracuda were about $6-7US a lb, which is far cheaper than what the stores sell it for. TIP: bring an ice cooler for the fish as there is no refrigeration in the cleaning area & Cayman is WARM, plus and juices that may leak out are better in the bottom of a cooler than on the carpet of your rental car.

Booze: Duty free before you arrive onto Cayman is the way to go. A liter of Tito's vodka was only $19 at Duty Free in Charlotte Airport yet $49 on Cayman. A case of Miller Lite is $49 as well. The markets listed above do not sell booze.