Chez Martine - St. Martin/St. Maarten

'Intimate' and 'friendly' are two words that come to mind immediately upon checking into Chez Martine, a Creole-style hotel...err...beach house/restaurant in the trendy Grand Case region. Although the air-conditioned rooms are perfectly functional and, besides a refrigerator, offer very little else in the form of amenities, a stay here is a chance to enjoy the Caribbean the way it
used to be: simple. There's no pool, either, but the beach at Grand Case is footsteps from your room.

With a place this small, you know the food has to be good to keep guests coming back year after year. And indeed it is. The namesake restaurant, Chez Martine, serves carefully prepared French-Creole specialties in an intimate open-air dining room that extends out above the beach. Grand Case is a quaint area protected, at least for a while, from over commercialization.