Bartolomeo
is a lovely open-air restaurant. Tables are set either under cover of the roof
of the main structure (but still open on two sides) or on a large wooden deck that
extends into a garden-like setting. The garden also features a grouping of
sofa/chairs/coffee table/outdoor lamps where you can enjoy drinks near the small
pond and waterfall. Bar’to Lounge, the bar adjacent to Bartolomeo restaurant,
serves a selection of wine, beer, liquor, and cocktails in a climate-controlled enclosed setting that features vaulted
ceilings, slatted window shutters, and low lighting. The restaurant building reminds
us of a beautiful plantation house with gingerbread trim. A few friendly cats call the Le Guanahani home resort home; one
particularly vocal kitty trolled the restaurant looking for table scraps
(fortunately, we love cats, so we enjoyed this one).
Bartolomeo
serves French and Caribbean cuisine. As our starter, we shared the risotto king
crab (accented with raspberries and licorice powder, which sounds odd but
tasted good!). The kitchen nicely split our shared starter
onto two plates, and each individual portion was so large that we thought that
they had misheard our order and delivered two separate dishes instead of one
shared. (We were pleased when our bill arrived that we were only charged for
one portion.) The bread “basket” at Bartolomeo is quite impressive; it was hard
to resist the many carbohydrate selections that arrived on the bread tray! (We
wish that we had taken a photo of this most remarkable site!) As our main
courses, we ordered the suckling
veal (served with carrots, chard, and morels) and a white fish dish (served
with green peas and other green veggies, so the overall effect was dichromatic and
gorgeous!). The presentation of the food at Bartolomeo was the most beautiful
that we saw during all of our meals on St Barth.
We spent a mostly
pleasant evening at Bartolomeo, where we admired the beautiful setting and the
tasty and nicely presented food. Our service was good until it came time to pay
the bill. When our server tried to swipe our charge card through her portable
card machine, it rejected our plate, which she tried to run several more times
with the same result. She inquired as to whether we presented her a valid card,
and we explained that we had used the card recently without issue; however, she
could not make it work. Then she asked for an alternate card, which was also
not accepted! By that time, she realized that the problem existed with her
machine and not with either of our cards, so she successfully ran the first
card at the machine at the bar. This matter put a damper on an otherwise nice
meal, because the server did not handle the issue with grace and tact, instead
making us feel like we were deadbeats who were trying to pull some sort of
scam! Had she thought about the issue logically, we presented an American
Express Platinum card, which is not a “credit” card, but is instead a “charge”
card that has no credit limit, so there was no way that funds were not
available to pay for our meal. She made no apology to make up for her insult,
which would have left us with an entirely different final view of Bartolomeo.
