Rooftop tapas, homegrown vegetables and brunch
30/01/2020 by Neil（https://businessbvimagazine.com/author/neil/）
Though Irma’s destruction is still visible throughout Road Town, the capital’s new culinary choices don’t reflect the spartan lifestyle often associated with the recovery effort.
On any given day this summer, residents could have enjoyed cassava salad in a cozy cafe, vegan quinoa bean wraps on a lush balcony, strawberry crepes by the waterside, or martinis and tapas on a breezy rooftop — all from businesses that got their start after Sept. 6.
“I think after Irma, there was just this need to fill a void for people to have some sense of normalcy,” said Portia Harrigan on June 15, the day after her restaurant, Lady Sarah’s Farms, opened its doors. “Because so many people are even still now walking around dazed, trying to recover from Irma, and I thought if I created a space where people could just come and chill out for a while and just forget about the whole situation on the outside, then it would be an addition not only to Main Street but to Road Town as a whole.”
Ms. Harrigan — who is married to the publisher of this newspaper — originally ran an earlier version of Lady Sarah’s in the late 1990s and early 2000s. It shut down, however, because finding employees became difficult and the market for the modernised menu hadn’t fully developed yet, she explained.
After going back to her home country, the Bahamas, for two years from 2010, Ms. Harrigan returned to the Virgin Islands committed to reopening her restaurant. She had already purchased furniture and equipment prior to Irma, and — in the debris-filled wake of the storm — had a choice to either throw in the towel or soldier on with developing the restaurant’s space in Road Town. She chose the latter.
“The ingredients are all Caribbean but we’re trying to put a more modern spin on them,” Ms. Harrigan said of her menu offerings. “People don’t necessarily want to sit down to eat a plate of rice and all that stuff for lunch every day, so while we’re doing protein still, we’re doing it with more greens and root stuff.”
Among their options this week were dishes like split pea soup with tania, carrots and sweet potato; a slow-roasted pork wrap with pickled onions and slaw; and beverages like pineapple and moringa lemonade.
The restaurant employs seven people and has placed an emphasis on sourcing local ingredients — a practice that has become more common in Road Town.
‘Farm to fork’
About three blocks away, Fiona O’Connor operates the “farm-to-fork” restaurant and catering business Captain’s Kitchen, which opened in January.
Ms. O’Connor heavily features organic food from VI farmers, and she operates an ever-rotating menu dependent on the availability of fresh ingredients. Originally designed to be more of a catering business providing pre-made meals for the yachting community, her focus expanded to the restaurant during the slower-than-average tourism season — with a special emphasis on weekend brunches.