Canadiana meets Caribbean
Gansevoort Turks + Caicos serves up campfire treats and hockey nights
PROVIDENCIALES, TURKS AND CAICOS— The sun is long gone and a mess of stars is beginning to streak across the night sky when we arrive at the beach.
Two handsome employees, dressed in white collared shirts, are busy building a bonfire and preparing a charming spread of chocolate bars, marshmallows and graham crackers.
It’s a timely indulgence following a few days of unseasonably cool temperatures on the island. We settle into plush sofas around the blazing fire and start to roast a few plump marshmallows.
This is a familiar scene at campsites and cottages across Ontario, but we’re not roughing it in Algonquin Provincial Park — we’re staying at an uber-stylish boutique hotel on a tiny tropical island, one of 40 that make up an archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean, southeast of the Bahamas.
At the Gansevoort Turks + Caicos, a sleek Canadian-owned beachfront property on the stunning Grace Bay Beach in Providenciales, 91 chic bedrooms (all with ocean views — a rarity in the region), an award-winning spa and a high-end restaurant set a scene that makes us feel right at home, including making s’mores on the beach after dinner.
Joel Vallar, executive chef on the property, supplies three simple ingredients to make the tasty confection that was born in the U.S.A. but is beloved in Canada — packaged graham crackers, store-bought marshmallows and Hershey’s almond chocolate bars. But he has ambitious pastry plans for the future.
The hotel is hiring a pastry chef from the Philippines, who is set to start this spring, and the in-house dessert menu (s’mores and all) will likely get the gourmet treatment.
S’mores are not the only Canadian comfort Ottawa native Bruce Maclaren, one of the hotel’s developers and owners (the other is Kitchener, Ont., native Rob Ayer), has brought to the property.
“We hold an event every year called Hockey Night in Turks,” says Maclaren. “We usually have it on the same day the NHL celebrates Hockey Night in Canada, and we set up a big screen and projector on the beach.”
Canadian expats living on the island are also invited to attend and join in the fun.
With a population of about 35,000, the Turks and Caicos Islands welcome more than 1.4 million tourists annually, according to tourism statistics. The lion’s share of visitors ar- rive by cruise and the remaining 435,475 are stopover arrivals — 47,413 of them from Canada.
Despite its convenient location and world-class beaches, Turks and Caicos is a relatively little known destination for many Canadians.
During our stay, we marvel at the beach, which is consistently ranked one of the best in the world. The hotel, which opened in 2009, offers a three-course beach dinner and bonfire package for two that includes everything you need to assemble your own s’mores for $550 (U.S.). Guests can opt for the s’mores and bonfire bundle for $200 for one or two guests.
Subcash Devadas, the hotel’s director of food and beverage, says a variety of packages are sold every week.
“The beach dinners are really popular with guests celebrating marriage anniversaries or proposals, but we host a lot of different groups for the bonfires,” says Devadas. “It’s the whole setup and experience . . . the ambience we create is special.”
As we sit there under a twinkly string of lights with our feet in the sand, enjoying fireside s’mores to an ocean soundtrack, it does feel pretty magical. Denise Dias was a guest of the Gansevoort Turks + Caicos, which did not review or approve this story.