The Best Beach Restaurants in St Barts

A beach lunch is one of the real pleasures of St Barts, and the island has built a small industry around it. Some of these places are full beach clubs with music and a scene. Others are quiet kitchens set back in a garden. This guide covers the best beach restaurants in St Barts, sorted by the beach they sit on, so you can plan a lunch around the stretch of sand you want.

One thing to know first. Not every beautiful beach here has a restaurant. The island’s wildest beaches have nothing at all, by design. So choosing where to eat is often the same decision as choosing where to spend the afternoon.

What a beach lunch means in St Barts

Lunch, not dinner, is the beach meal here. The format runs from a simple plate of grilled fish to a long, loud afternoon at a club with a DJ and rosé on ice. Prices climb fast at the well-known clubs, and a beach lunch in high season can cost as much as a serious dinner.

None of that is a reason to skip it. A few hours in the sand with good food, a swim between courses and the afternoon stretching out ahead is the island at its most enjoyable. Most beach restaurants take reservations, and the popular ones need them. Walk-ins are easier early in the week and early in the day.

St Jean: the social beach

St Jean is the island’s social beach, a calm, shallow bay with the airport at one end and a run of restaurants set behind the sand. It is the obvious place for a beach lunch with some buzz to it, and the water is warm and flat enough for an easy swim between courses.

Nikki Beach, on the bay, is the headline act. It is a beach club as much as a restaurant, built for a long, social afternoon, and in high season it is one of the hardest lunch tables on the island to land. It runs well into the evening too, and the sunset from here is part of the draw. Book ahead, and treat it as the plan for the day rather than a quick bite.

St Jean has gentler options as well. Our guide to the best beaches for families covers the bay in more detail if you are traveling with children.

Shell Beach: lunch a few steps from town

Shell Beach sits right against Gustavia, which makes it the easiest beach lunch to reach. You can walk there from the harbour in a few minutes. Shellona, on the sand, is the name to know, a Mediterranean kitchen that runs from lunch straight through to one of the better sunsets on the island.

Because it is so close to town, Shell Beach works as a half-day rather than a full expedition. Lunch, a swim, a drink as the light drops, then a short walk back into Gustavia for the evening. Our Shell Beach guide has the full picture of the beach itself.

Grande Saline: a garden, not a beach club

Grande Saline is one of the most beautiful beaches on the island, and it has no buildings on it at all. There is no restaurant on the sand, and that is the whole point of Saline.

What it has instead, a short walk back from the beach, is Le Tamarin. Le Tamarin is a calm, leafy restaurant set in a garden, more shade and birdsong than music and crowd. It is the natural pairing with a Saline beach day. Walk over the dune in the morning, swim, then come back for a long, slow lunch out of the sun. It is the quieter end of the beach-lunch scale, and for a lot of visitors that is exactly right.

The wild beaches keep nothing, by design

Gouverneur, Colombier and the other wild beaches have no facilities of any kind. No restaurant, no bar, no shade, nothing for sale. If you want one of those beaches for the day, lunch is something you carry in with you. Our main beaches guide flags which beaches have nothing, so you can pack accordingly.

The hotel beaches, Flamands in particular, sit somewhere in between. Several hotels there have restaurants open to non-guests, and the settings are lovely. As a rule, though, you are paying for the address as much as for the kitchen.

Timing a beach lunch

Two small things make a beach lunch better. Book the popular clubs ahead, especially for any day in the busy season, since the best of them fill early. And think about the sun. A table in full midday glare is a very different experience from a shaded one, so ask about shade when you reserve and aim to be seated before the lunch rush.

For dinner tables, sunset spots and the island’s full dining picture, see our guide to the best restaurants in St Barts.