Million Air Winter 2023/24

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for the day as part of the tour to enjoy its quiet strip of sand and star fi sh-studded sea, and its excellent local produce-inspired menu, from the conch fritters with spicy aioli, to the mahi-mahi roti with Rastafari-style ital salad. (‘Ital’ is the name for the plant-based diet of the Rastafari religion, designed to improve health and energy.) And talking of ital, we have a date with Ras Iroy and his yabba pot. Iroy is a key fi gure in the local Rastafari community, and he’s keen to share his culture through food — cue Cooking with Ras Iroy. “Ital comes from vital — we use a lot of ‘i’s in Rastafari culture,” he chuckles, as we wander through one of the community’s extensive kitchen gardens, picking herbs and vegetables as we go — Joo piling up her calabash bowl (the movement eschews plastic) with vitamin-packed amaranth leaves and an extra helping of Scotch bonnet chilies to add heat, in a nod to her heritage.

And it works. We are moved to tears and joy during Phillip’s Alexander Hamilton Island Tour, as he fi rst steers us around the United States’ Founding Father’s home, now a museum in the island’s capital of Charlestown, continuing his fascinating tale over co ff ee and cake under an almond tree at the colorful Cafe des Arts on the grounds. Phillip then escorts us around the island, stopping at locations along the way that would have been familiar to Hamilton, from where slaves once disembarked at Crosses Alley (“This is our Ellis Island,” he announces) to Cottle Church, which Phillip declares the most important building in the Caribbean, where Black and white people prayed together in a desegregated plantation estate church a good 10 years before abolition. For the inaugural tour, Phillip has invited Korean-American celebrity chef Judy Joo. No stranger to Nevis — she makes regular appearances at the island’s annual Mango Festival and holidays here when she’s not running her restaurants in London and Las Vegas — she is keen to discover more. “Who knew there were so many di ff erent varieties of mango here?” she grins, before heading back for more at the Four Seasons Resort Nevis, our plush home for the week and the island’s only resort hotel. The other seven hotels on the island are mostly luxury boutique hotels, with Paradise Beach Nevis regarded as the most exclusive. We are invited there

Right Four Seasons Nevis

Rested but richer for the people we met, the new foods we tasted, and the culture we absorbed

Thisimage Four Seasons Nevis Left Rum punch at Paradise Beach Nevis