La Banane

Mr & Mrs Smith have just returned from a stay at this boutique hotel in St Barths, and just as soon as they've unpacked their bags, a full anonymous review of La Banane will be posted here. In the meantime, just to whet your wanderlust, here's a brief postcard from this Caribbean collection of jungle bungalows…

As you’d guess from the name, there’s a fruity theme running through La Banane. Immersed in a dense mesh of tropical flora, the hotel’s nine bedrooms are each named after a tropical fruit and coloured to match, so the muslin-draped four-poster bed in the ‘Lime’ bungalow is painted a bold green, while its counterpart in ‘Watermelon’ is positively crimson. Apart from these vibrant flashes of colour in otherwise all-white surroundings, everything about the hotel exudes shimmering minimalism – if anything, it’s the sheer luxuriance of the gardens that ups the opulence levels to maximum. You’ll find the hotel via a private, almost hidden, entrance behind a small but – this being St Barths –sophisticated shopping centre, and despite such an emblem of civilisation on the doorstep, Le Banane still feels like a secluded island escape.  

Pick your way through palm trees and poinciania to the unusually shaped two-tier pool area, grab a cocktail from the bar-cum-style library, and bask in both the sunshine and the smug sense of satisfaction derived from finding this little paradise before anyone else.