Antigua Celebrates Cuisine And Opens Door To Caribbean Heritage Month
Antigua is beautiful. Antigua is too beautiful. Sometimes the beauty of it seems unreal. Sometimes the beauty of it seems as if it were stage sets for a play, for no real sunset could look like that….excerpt from Antiguan-American author, Jamaica Kincaid, in her essay, 'A Small Place'.
As Caribbean Heritage Month moves into full swing in the United States, there was an unofficial prelude over in Antigua and Barbuda during a month-long celebration in May. For the third year in a row, Antigua and Barbuda Culinary Month, organized by the tourism board, has corralled local and visiting chefs, along with other hospitality professionals to highlight the bounty of the region's cuisine and talent with tastings, forums, and demos all of which was made electric by local music and daily revelry.
The celebration launched on May 4 with restaurants across the island featuring special prix fixe menus for Restaurant Week. On the same day, the Cedar Valley Golf Club went from a fairway for pitches, putts, and drives to a village green full of stalls for a food, art, and beverage fair. Known more officially as FAB FEST, the fair was an 'everyone's invited' experience with face-painting and games for kids or mixology and cooking demonstrations for adults. A parade of dancers on stilts in tradition costumes added to the color and energy that initiated the month-long, hyper-focused lens on Antigua and its cuisine.
Antiguan dancers kick off Fab Fest, which began the month-long May celebration of the region.
Just as Kincaid pointed out in her essay, 'A Small Place,' Antigua is a complex place with a torrid history, yet it is underscored by a thoroughfare of perseverance and beauty that seems unreal yet undeniable. In the same way, the bounty of fruit and vegetables, for example, seem unreal in their brightness or sweetness or color with an undeniably more flavorful taste than the same bite from other places. From soursops and saltfish, black pineapple and pumpkin, plantains and coconut, or ackee and tamarind, products and their caretakers--from farmers and vendors, got center stage during the month-long celebration.
This year the fête returned with local and visiting chefs who partnered with a number of restaurants around the island to curate unique culinary experiences that take local ingredients and dishes and elevate them to star-studded plates. Antiguan-American chef and former Food Network Chopped Champion Claude Lewis, joined forces with London-based Antiguan chef, Andi Oliver, and culinary students from the region's Hospitality Training Institute (ABHTI) for a fine-dining, multi-course homage to the island at Blue Waters Resort.
When talking to some of the chefs who have 'come home' to pay tribute, there's an array of emotion surrounding the experience. On the one hand, they have planted roots elsewhere, and yet celebrating the land of their parents, their ancestors, is an unquestionable act of pride and celebration. 'Being invited for culinary month is an honor,' Chef Lewis said. Lewis, who has most recently led Freetown Road Project in Jersey City, an eatery named after the location in Antigua where his parents are from added, 'It's important for me to bring awareness to the vibrant culture of Antigua and Barbuda.'
Chef Andi Oliver and Chef Althea Brown at Blue Water Resort Collaboration Dinner, May 8.
Being able to do so with Chef Oliver and the team of students from ABHTI not only brought a range of culinary expertise together, but validation that a small island is worthy of a big culinary moment. 'It was truly an inspirational experience which I'll be bringing back to New York City in the form of my new Restaurant Rasta opening late summer early fall,' Lewis continued. Chef Oliver, also the author of the popular The Pepperpot Diaries--part cookbook, part memoir--agreed that the event was emotional and special, adding on her Instagram, 'We called upon our ancestors and they helped us bring plates full of inspiration to our tables.'
Another collaborative dinner which brought two esteemed Antiguan-born chefs together--Chef Kareem Roberts and Chef Kerth Gumbs--proved similarly festive and noteworthy. Held at the newly reopened Rokuni restaurant in Sugar Ridge, the two chefs, based in the U.K., came together to create a high-end celebration of local ingredients. Roberts, head chef at the award-winning The Burleigh Arms , was seen throughout his time in Antigua shopping at the local markets before his event and gushing over the variety, the color, the taste which can only be described as moment of real pride.
'Being a part of Culinary Heritage Month is a bespoke honour—and something of a full circle moment for me. When I left Antigua in 2010, I was in search of the very things this event now offers: exposure, structure, and inspiration. Back then, I was a young, hungry cook with few reference points, hoping to find my place in the wider culinary world. To now see those resources being built at home is more than fulfilling—it's a quiet reassurance that the next generation of Antiguan culinarians will begin their journey with a head start I never had."
Chef Kareem Roberts with culinary students at Rokuni Collaborative dinner in Antigua, May 9.
'Returning home has taught me that the real narrative lies in the ingredients—and in the hands that offer them. If you were to ask me to describe the soul of Antiguan food, I would urge you to look no further than the central market on a Saturday morning. It is a living archive of culture: a cacophony of food, history, resilience, and honesty. I could wax lyrical about the quality of the produce here, but there is nothing more powerful than the presence of the people—the hands that present you with their best. These are hands that have fed families, turned soil, braided hair, and built communities.'
Amidst the special evening dinners there were daily street tours and cooking demos, all celebrating the hyper local offerings of farmers, vendors, and restauranteurs. Chef Althea Brown of Caribbean Paleo was on board to highlight the many intersections and cultures that make up Caribbean cuisine. Originally from Guyana, now the U.S., Brown hosted a Caribbean roti-making class.
'I was honored to be invited back for a second year, to share about the heritage of the Caribbean roti. I hosted Baylay–a hands on roti-making master class. Baylay is a Guyanese creole word that means to roll out roti dough. The class featured little anecdotes of British indentureship and how it shaped Guyana's culinary heritage," Brown noted.
Each participant made their own Guyanese oil rotis and then ate their creations with chicken curry and channa and aloo curry, further illuminating the many cultural influences that make up Caribbean cuisine. 'Although this experience doesn't fall under fine dining umbrella of the culinary month, I love that Antigua sees the value in highlighting this culinary tradition that made its way from Guyana and Trinidad to the rest of the Caribbean. '
Chef Kerth Gumbs of Fenchurch restaurant in London, amidst his collaborative dinner with Chef Kareem ... More Roberts during Antigua and Barbuda Culinary Month, May 9.
Although Kincaid's essay, 'A Small Place' delves deeply into Antigua's dark, complicated history, peeking from the corners of each page, like a ray of sunlight is the realization that a remarkable wealth of beauty, pride, and creativity can come from it as well. The Antigua and Barbuda Culinary month and the energy surrounding it, is just one example of how one small place can create a powerful, reverberating experience that goes well beyond those unreal sunsets and too beautiful blue waters.
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