The Breakfast Test: Eating Properly in the Caribbean Without a Wristband

I've eaten a lot of disappointing breakfasts in the Caribbean, and almost all of them were served under a warm lamp in a windowless room.

That's the trouble with the all-inclusive wristband. It solves a problem you didn't have — where's dinner — and creates one you did: you stop leaving the property. The food on these islands is one of the genuinely great reasons to be here, and most of it is nowhere near a buffet.

The breakfast test

Judge a hotel by its first meal and you'll know what kind of place you've booked.

Good signs: fruit cut this morning, including something you can't buy in Sainsbury's — soursop, guava, star apple, sugar apple, pink grapefruit sweet enough to need no sugar. Eggs cooked to order rather than scooped. Saltfish somewhere on the menu, even if it's not for you. A proper pot of coffee, or a jug of local juice that separates if you leave it standing.

Bad signs: a juice dispenser. A toaster with a queue. Pastries that clearly arrived frozen. Six types of cereal and nothing that grew on the island. And the giveaway — is anyone local eating here?

You don't need to stay somewhere fancy. A small guesthouse in Bequia or a mid-range hotel in Rodney Bay will often beat a five-star's breakfast simply because someone's auntie is doing the cooking.

Rum shops: no menu, no website, no problem

A rum shop is a bar that sells rum, usually sells food, and is usually somebody's front room. They're painted in colours that would fail any UK planning committee. There's no menu. There may not even be prices on the wall.

Walk in, say good morning, ask what's cooking. If the answer involves the words fish, stew or soup, order it. In Barbados you'll get flying fish, macaroni pie and rice and peas; in Antigua, ducana and saltfish; in Grenada, oil down on a Saturday; in Tobago, crab and dumpling; in Trinidad, doubles in the morning and bake and shark after a swim.

The etiquette is simple. Greet everyone when you come in. Don't ask for a wine list. Don't be surprised if the food runs out — that's a compliment to the cook, not an inconvenience to you.

Roadside grills and the £6 lunch

The best-value meal in the Caribbean is almost always cooked outdoors over a drum of charcoal, sold from a wooden shack, and eaten off a paper plate while standing up.

Look for a queue of people in work clothes at about half past twelve. That's your grill. Barbecued chicken, jerk pork, grilled snapper, a roti rolled in front of you. Expect somewhere between £4 and £9 depending on the island and the protein — Barbados and Antigua at the higher end, Tobago and Grenada at the lower.

Friday and Saturday nights are when the grills turn into something bigger: Oistins in Barbados, Gros Islet in St Lucia, the Sunday evening jump-up at Shirley Heights in Antigua. Go early, go hungry, and take cash.

Markets and the fruit you can't get at home

Every island has a central market, and it's usually the most interesting half hour you'll spend. Castries in St Lucia and St George's in Grenada are particularly good; Bridgetown's is louder and faster.

Buy fruit you don't recognise and ask how to eat it. Someone will show you. That's half the point.

If you're staying in a self-catering apartment — and for a food-led trip you probably should be — a market run on day one pays for itself immediately. Breakfast of local fruit, yoghurt and good bread on your own balcony costs a fraction of the hotel version, and leaves more budget for the dinners that matter.

Island by island

Barbados — the most food-literate of the direct-flight islands. Oistins on a Friday, a rum shop lunch in Speightstown, and more good restaurants per square mile than anywhere else in the region.

Antigua — Sunday at Shirley Heights, roadside black pineapple in season, and some excellent small kitchens around English Harbour.

St Lucia — Gros Islet on a Friday night, green fig and saltfish for breakfast, and the best rotis in the eastern Caribbean.

Grenada — the spice island, and it tastes like it. Oil down, nutmeg ice cream, and a Saturday market worth planning a trip around.

Jamaica — ackee and saltfish, Scotch bonnet in everything, and jerk pits that have been going for decades.

Tobago — crab and dumpling, and a pace of eating that suits a holiday rather than a schedule.

What it actually costs

Two weeks of eating well without a wristband, for two people: budget around £45 to £60 a day in total for food, covering a market breakfast, a roadside or rum shop lunch, and a mid-range dinner with a drink. Add one proper splurge at £70 to £100 a head and you're still comfortably under what an all-inclusive upgrade would set you back — and you'll have eaten the Caribbean rather than a slightly warmer version of a hotel in Surrey.

The one dinner worth dressing for

Book one. A beachfront table, a serious rum list, something grilled whole and brought to you on a plate that isn't plastic. It's the meal you'll remember, and it's the reason the other thirteen nights can be paper plates and folding chairs.

Just don't eat it at the buffet.