Palms wave in the sunshine on Anguilla Beach. Photograph © Layne Kennedy/CORBIS

Easygoing Anguilla
By Keith Bellows

Beaches put this Caribbean isle on the tourist map; great food, music, and no crowds should keep it there.

"Anguilla is the way it is because we've always had what nobody wants," Bankie Banx, a celebrated Anguillan singer-songwriter, is telling me. "This is scrub land. All we've ever grown are peas and corn; no other crops survive. But today Anguilla is about the beaches. And everyone wants beaches." We're looking out over one of those beaches at a platinum view of the neighboring island of St. Martin from Banx's island home, called the Dune Preserve. This is more than just a home, however. It's also one of the Caribbean's signature beach bars, a ramshackle Robinson Crusoe affair with roofs and walls crafted from flotsam and scavenged driftwood, and an outdoor stage where Banx and others perform on weekend nights.

Like this bar-cum-house, low-slung Anguilla, a 3-by-16-mile eel-shaped isle (anguilla is Spanish for eel), is a raffishly renegade member of a Caribbean island family that is slowly losing its collective character to tourism. Despite its 12 miles of powdery white sand that place it at or near the top of any beach rankings, the island is an unassuming place: The newspaper gently reminds tourists to "Please shop with your clothes on"; citizens have resignedly accepted the introduction of cars (there is no public bus service); and you can attend a private yoga class led by an American who clearly hasn't realized the hippie movement has come and gone.

First on our playbill, after checking into our spacious room at the Frangipani Hotel, a Spanish Mediterranean concoction in the center of long Meads Bay Beach, was to—what else?—hit the beach. We quickly discovered an island where, when it throws a beach party, nobody comes. No matter what the season, the beaches almost never get crowded. Unfortunately, we would have little beach time: Our visit coincided with a stretch of rainy weather that had locals repeating the depressing refrain, "We haven't seen this much rain in ten years."

Stripped of our chance to glory in the sun, we slid directly into the Zone—that state of being where you forget to phone the office or worry about car payments. This is because Anguilla rates maybe a two out of ten in things to do: The main "city," the Valley, is a blink of an eye. Shopping and nightlife are limited (with the exception of the reggae-raucous Pumphouse, stocked with Anguilla's largest selection of rums). This left us with the watersports—diving, sportfishing, windsurfing—all ruled out in our case by the rain. And it left us with eating.

Anguilla turns out to be a haven for Culinary Institute types who have beaten a path here for sun, surf, and free rein in the kitchen. Take Koal Keel, which a friend who's been to Anguilla eight times called "one of my top five favorite restaurants in the universe." On the grounds of an old estate whose gardens still yield the herbs that go into the food, this restaurant drowned us in romantic atmospherics, crisp service, and such Euro-Caribe favorites as crayfish ravioli and rock chicken grilled in a 200-year-old rock oven—not to mention a 35,000- bottle wine cellar and some 30 rums, including an exotic Cask 23 Anguilla Pyrat.

At Mango's, a book-early-and-prepare-to-wait restaurant, we scarfed down sesame snapper and a coconut cheesecake that turned the head of this dessert non-eater. And the lobster at Palm Grove on Junk's Hole Bay was as good as any I had as a child on Cape Cod. (Tip: Buy a Red Stripe and sit on the beach to digest the meal and the ocean blue.)

Our favorite island eatery, though, turned out to be the Roti Hut, a yellow bungalow with pink and green shutters, an outhouse bathroom, and an open-air porch. Here, a quarter-mile from the airport check-in desk, we had our final meal on the island—curried conch, goat roti, steamed red snapper, cornmeal with sweet potato, and plantain salad. As I drank my Carib lager and watched the chickens and goats forage in the restaurant's backyard, I reflected on something that Davis, our hotel manager, had told me. "Anguilla has a very enlightened government. It won't make the mistake that other islands have made. It won't sell off its future. You're seeing the Caribbean the way it used to be."

That—not the beaches or the food—will be our main reason for returning.

The information in this story was accurate at the time it was published, but we suggest you confirm all details before making travel plans.