Coconut Cove, Great Bay-Red Hook, St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands

We naturally had several meals and the odd drink or two at the Ritz-Carlton Club’s poolside grill, Coconut Cove. It’s a nice setting, covered and open to the air, with good views of both the pool and Great Bay. Here’s a view of the grill from our room — see the tables on the right.

In addition to serving in the immediate environs of the restaurant, waiters also roamed the pool and served drinks and food to those who preferred not to disturb their rigorous relax-and-tan schedule.

The Coconut Cove menu is fairly typical of poolside grills. A favorite of our group was the Caribe Tacos, made with fresh mahi-mahi, usually ordered with a very nice, very fresh side salad.

The tacos were generously filled and the fish was cooked well. The tacos came with a tasty cilantro lime cream sauce. The alternative to the salad as a side dish was french fries, a natural with the Coconut Cove burger.

Doesn’t that look good? The fries were very good, with a crisp textured exterior and a pillowy center. The burger patty itself had been hand-formed and the burger and cheese enhanced by some grilled onions — and always cooked to order (a rarity, especially among poolside grills).

I ventured once to order the West Indies Chicken Wrap, which contained chopped fried chicken, bacon, cheddar, and a ranch dressing that had a nice little kick.

The chicken wrap was tasty, and the various ingredients married well. Of course, bacon makes everything better.

Oh, and the poolside grill also served beverages. I didn’t have any wine poolside, but those who preferred wine had excellent options, both by the glass and by the bottle. I stayed downscale and enjoyed the Island Hoppin’ IPA, but the Island Summer Ale — both are by St. John Brewers — ended up as the choice poolside beer. I may just visit their tap room in Mongoose Junction on my next trip to St. John. I also ventured to order an Island Rum Punch and a Painkiller. The drinks were well crafted, and marked by a very generous, at times startling, pour. The amount of alcohol is only apparent when you’re watching the bartender mix the drink, and not so much when you taste it. Proceed with caution.

When the sun goes down, the menu goes up. For dinner, Coconut Cove serves full meals, like whole red snapper, beef tenderloin, and lobster. We didn’t try it for dinner. Aside from a lovely dinner at Bleuwater, we cooked dinner or went off property.

The service at Coconut Cove was outstanding, which is not something you can take for granted in the Islands. Indeed, when Scott had left his credit card at the bar after the bill had been paid, a waiter took the trouble to track Scott down in the pool in order to return the card. Has a waiter ever done that for you? And the waiters uniformly were diligent in connecting wandering customers with the food they’d ordered poolside.

Coconut Cove is well above the average for poolside grills. You always pay a little more at poolside bars, and at Ritz-Carlton properties, you may pay a little more than that, but the quality, the service, the setting, the views, and the pool make it well worth the price.

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