Review: Cobblers Cove, Barbados – your hotel home in the Caribbean

It’s not because this pink gem of a hotel is stashed away in the verdure of its Barbadian gardens that Cobblers Cove is so named. (Although pink and green are its signature colours.) And it’s not because, like a pirates’ cove, it is especially secret. 

Cobblers has been a celebrated Caribbean treasure since at least the late 1960s, when it was sold to the Godsal family, the current owners. And, as far as I’m aware, it has never been the seaside repository of shoe repairers either. 

“Cobblers” is the local name given to the majestic white frigate birds that swirl above its tropical coastline. It is to them that the cove truly belongs – along with the schools of tropical fish and turtles swimming among the reefs.

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Living with nature is very much part of the Cobblers philosophy. The drinking water, for instance, is distilled on the island and the water that the head gardener, Kennedy, uses to water his plants is collected from rainfall. Do stop to say hello during your wanderings through the gardens if you should see him. 

His botanical knowledge is encyclopaedic and his enthusiasm for all things horticultural is infectious. So, by extension, then, it should come as no great surprise that sustainability is also the ethos of the perennially smiling Sam de Teran. 

She, with her husband Hugh Godsal, runs – or perhaps more accurately looks after – Cobblers. But it is to her, as creative director, that the job of curating the hotel’s aesthetic falls. Nothing is allowed to go to waste. 

That means what were formerly the curtains are now the cushion covers. And also, as she points out, thrift is often a necessity of island life.

Still, de Teran has worked wonders at Cobblers. One morning, I found myself sitting in the lounge – more of an open-sided living room, really – thumbing through one of the hotel family photo albums kept there for guests. 

The furnishings in the room in which I sat were, let’s say, of their time in the 1970s and 1980s. Now, they are prim and proper in their elegant pinks and light greens – a little slice of England transported to the tropics, with antique maps on the walls. 

That’s not to say the Caribbean isn’t present. Far from it. Much of the furniture is made locally and the artwork on display in the covered outdoor restaurant, Camelot, reflects de Teran’s taste in contemporary Barbadian painting.

Mahi mahi and much more

Since we’re here, let’s look at the menu. I have stayed at many a hotel on a paradise island expecting to receive the bounty of the ocean only to be served mahi mahi every day. Not here. 

There was barracuda gravadlax; “island” (rock) lobster, served with pickles or as a bisque; seared tuna tataki and tartar; coconut-crusted shrimp; yes – mahi mahi, smoked in a salad; the classic Caribbean salt cod and even – my lunchtime favourite with a cold beer – grilled flying fish in a bap. 

The restaurant is right on the water, looking west, so diners are rewarded most evenings with a spectacular sunset. After dinner, retire to the bar for an island rum or take a stroll around the pool, complete with inflatable pink flamingo. It’s all very Slim Aarons. Both the pool and the bar have just been refurbished.

In the morning, you can take out Cobblers’ little pink motorboat to tour the coast (wave to Rihanna), or jump out for a snorkel with the aforementioned tropical fish and sea turtles. Surfing is another possibility. Then, unwind in the afternoon with a massage.

But there is something else that is unique to Cobblers. It is the sense that you aren’t really staying in a hotel at all. Again, perhaps this really shouldn’t come as a surprise. The Godsals have long since made a home of Cobblers, many of the guests are old friends and the staff are part of the family. Really – I was astonished to recognise one gentleman in a photo from the 1970s as the very same still behind the bar. 

One evening, we looked up from our aperitif cocktails to see de Teran, in a long floral dress, waltzing under the eaves with her dance teacher. And there is none of this modern obsession about securing a room with a “sea view”. Some of the 41 suites do face the water, but the others make a virtue of opening onto the gardens. 

I felt very much at home in my garden suite. The bedroom was cool and spacious, with a long adjoining bathroom. The wooden slats in the living room let in plenty of air and there was even a little coffee press. There was air-conditioning in the bedroom – a concession to modernity, but happily no telly. 

Instead, you are invited to sit out on your terrace, with Saint Lucia’s poet laureate Derek Walcott for company – and the long-tailed green monkey that would watch me from its palm-tree perch. 

Chris was a guest of Cobblers Cove. From $820 per night on a B&B basis for two people sharing, cobblerscove.com.