St. Lawrence Gap

The Gap, as everyone on the island calls it, is a single strip of road running roughly half a kilometre along the south coast, and at ten in the evening it operates at a frequency that I find difficult to describe to people who haven’t experienced the Caribbean after dark. The music comes from multiple directions simultaneously. The smell of grilled food competes with sun cream and spilled rum punch. People sit at outdoor tables with their drinks raised against the heat, and the whole thing has the slightly chaotic, deeply enjoyable energy of a party that has been going on long enough to stop caring whether it’s cool.

I’m not usually someone who seeks out nightlife strips. I tend toward the quieter end of things, the rum shop in a side street rather than the bar with a DJ. But St. Lawrence Gap does something interesting: it has a day life too, and a daytime personality that is markedly different from its nocturnal one. In the morning, the restaurants that were packed the night before put out chairs by the water and serve breakfast. The beach in front of The Gap is narrow but calm, the water a deep blue-green, the waves minimal. I swam there one morning at seven and had the whole stretch to myself.

The restaurant landscape is broader than the party reputation suggests. Champers, perched on the rocks at the eastern end, is not cheap but serves some of the best fish on the island with a wine list that surprised me. Café Sol does Mexican food that I ate out of curiosity (reasonable, not revelatory) and cocktails that were better than the food. The place I kept returning to was a small roti shop on the inland side of the road where a man opened his counter at eleven-thirty and closed it when the roti ran out, which was usually around two. His chicken roti had a dhalpuri roti skin — thin, flaky, made with ground split peas — that I would put up against anything I’ve eaten in Trinidad.

What the Gap does best is the thing the Caribbean does best when it’s not trying to be Europe: it relaxes completely into itself. The bars have been there long enough that the bartenders know the regulars, the music selections follow patterns I started to recognize after a few nights, and the crowd is mixed in a way that Bridgetown is not always and the resort hotels definitely are not.

Wednesday night at Harbour Lights — which technically is just west of The Gap proper but close enough to count — has an outdoor beach party that runs until late. I went once, danced badly, drank well, and took a taxi back at one in the morning feeling significantly more cheerful than when I arrived.

When to go: The Gap runs all year, but the December through April dry season brings the most visitors and the liveliest atmosphere. For a quieter version where locals outnumber tourists, come in June or July. The beach itself is best in the morning before the wind picks up; by afternoon the south coast can get choppy. Nights are livelier Thursday through Saturday.