Frommer's Review
It's the most unusual dining option in Port Antonio, and perhaps in Jamaica. Unconventional and entirely dependent on the whims and imagination of its owner, Dickie (Alvin) Butler, it occupies a small but charming, virtually unmarked, faux-Victorian cottage set at a bend in the coastal highway at Bryan's Bay, about 1.5km (1 mile) west of Port Antonio. Don't come here expecting anything ordinary: Meals must be ordered in advance since supplies are brought in only according to the guests who have pre-booked on any given evening. The premises, at least from the outside, looks like a tropical version of the kind of Victorian cottage that might have nurtured the Brontë sisters in 19th-century England, until you realize that the gables, the cornices, and the casement windows are purely decorative, cleverly fashioned out of wire, steel mesh, and sheet metal. You'll immediately descend into a pair of crazed-angled dining rooms loaded with a surrealistic combination of High Victorian English and Jamaican Rastafarian accessories. Dinner unfolds with bemused humor, something like a High Tea in the Cotswolds on psychedelics. Some of the most massive stone foundations in the neighborhood, all of them visible from the cozy and claustrophobic dining rooms, keep the building from crashing off the cliff into the sea. Local wits claim that the view from the toilets here is the most panoramic in and around Port Antonio, and after checking them out, we entirely agree. Depending on what you ordered, in advance, you and your party will enjoy that pivot around well-flavored main courses of chicken, fish, or lobster.
If you opt for a meal here (we refer to it as "a Jamaican experience that just happens to include dinner"), you won't be alone. Clients as diverse as Winnie Mandela, relatives of the Presidents Bush, some high-placed executives from Paramount Studios, and restaurant critics from The Jamaica Observer magazine will have been there before you. Dickie (i.e. Alvin) performed dinner service, it's widely rumored, for Queen Elizabeth II during her stay, early in the 1970s, at Frenchman's Cove Resort, when both Dickie and The Queen were a lot younger. Alas, if the idea of a meal within Dickie's orbit appeals to you, hurry, since the Jamaica Department of Highways and Dickie are feuding, presently, over Jamaica's stated intention of widening the coastal highway. If the government's wishes prevail, Dickie's and its stacks of newspaper clippings and guest books will be shoved into the sea, alas, all in the name of progress. Dickie's very handsome son, incidentally, who may or may not be helping with the dinner service at the time of your arrival, is Dennis Wickliffe Butler.
Note: This information was accurate when it was published, but can change without
notice. Please be sure to confirm all rates and details directly with the companies in question before
planning your trip.
