Champers, Bridgetown, Barbados – dinner comes with epic sunsets, sea views and dope Art

As our time on this beautiful island of Barbados comes to an end, we have dinner at the very elegant and artful restaurant called Champers. On my first morning in Barbados, the island god(s) blessed me with the most beautiful sunrise, captured by Neal. Yes, I was fast asleep but, Neal, being Neal, was up and captured it for me, ain’t he just the dopest? This evening, whilst enjoying a glass of bubbly at our table located on the deck, which is right on the beach or shall I say sea, it was the perfect place to watch the sunset. It was beautiful! What can I say, the island gods came through massively for your girl!

What I particularly love about Champers is not just the décor of the restaurant itself, it also houses a very cool art gallery called ‘on the wall’ which is filled with art by the locals. From when you ascend the stairs, the walls are lined with colourful art works – of the area, the country and surrounding islands! It is probably one of the coolest art spaces I have been too. I use the word art space because even though it is a gallery, it didn’t feel like it. Might be all the colour and light, the fact that you are in Barbados, I don’t know. The space was filled with such a good vibe, music playing, the lickle bar area, well you know what that means!

Ha! ha! Apologies, blabbing on about the décor when I should be telling you about the food, my bad! Our meal started off with the Camembert. When I hear Camembert, I think cheese (and not the kind that I like either) but this dish was not that. Yes, it had cheese elements, but this was in a baked puff pastry and served with spiced apples! The puff pastry was gooey in the middle from the cheese and went surprisingly well with the apples in a sauce and salad. The pan-seared scallops – another starter that we loved, was served on a risotto cake with cream. I was like wait, what? Risotto cake? It was used as a base to serve some extremely fresh scallops! The cous cous came with slow roasted pork belly and port glaze! Folks, these three dishes were starters! You read right, starters! They looked too good to pass up on the menu, we had to try them out and we were not disappointed at all! Teriyaki & maple glazed duck and Cajun mahi mahi were our choices for mains. The duck dish was divine, served with wild mushroom reduction and bean cassoulet. The mash served with the mahi mahi was so creamy with the pepper jelly and caper dressing and the freshest seasonal vegetables! Omg! We were happy bunnies!

That happy feeling tripled with the dessert! We had champers coconut pie. I mean you are on the island its either coconuts or mangoes, right? When I tell you, this has got to be the richest pie I have had! It was lush, the coconut was not overbearing even though we had coconut ice cream on the side! I don’t know how the chef balanced it all out, nor do I really care to be honest, All I know is, it was scrumptiously yummy!

Yes, Barbados, you served some fire food tonight! I cannot wait to come back to this slice of paradise.

Cheers

Ndidi