Best Hotel Restaurants in Jamaica

Featuring fresh, seasonal ingredients and inventive Jamaican-focused menus, the restaurant at the Caves offers such highlights as pumpkin ginger soup, saffron crab cakes served over spicy tomato salsa and drizzled with a herb-mustard vinaigrette, or rock shrimp simmered in a savory coconut sauce. The guests are encouraged to sample every dish if they like, and are also told "Anything else requested can be accommodated, never a problem!" The setting -- overlooking the sunset on the coarse rock cliffs or by candlelight inside a natural cave -- is beyond compare.

Offering top-quality cuisine from four restaurants -- including an authentic beachside jerk chicken shack -- the Ritz-Carlton focuses on seasonal, locally-grown ingredients and the rotating menu options range from Jamaican-Asian, to Jamaican-Mediterranean, to Jamaican-American, to Jamaican-Jamaican fare. Roasted duck over jasmine rice with dried fruit and plantains, home-made ice cream, or just a simple, extremely fresh, buttery talapia sandwich poolside -- all meals are top-quality. The Ritz is also one of the few Jamaican resorts to offer 24-hour room service.

Run by Chef Martin Ian Maginley -- winner of the prestigious "Chef of the Caribbean" award for two consecutive years -- the restaurant at the Round Hill hotel focuses on elegant, locally-focused cuisine. Standards have an upscale twist, like jerk chicken wraps, lobster-salad sandwiches with local seasonings, and plantain chips with a sun-dried tomato and olive oil paste. Kids' menus are available, and unlike the great majority of Jamaican resorts, there are several vegetarian options including some with tofu.

Home to seven restaurants, the Half Moon resort offers some of the best all-inclusive dining in Jamaica. The Sea Grape Terrace offers a popular "full Jamaican breakfast" buffet, which includes a mix of ackee and salt fish (the national dish), fried bread dumplings, grilled bananas, yams, and mixed vegetables. The Il Giardino Italian restaurant and the Sugar Mill, an upscale Caribbean restaurant housed within a centuries-old, dramatically lit sugar mill, both feature high-quality entrees.

Offering beautifully prepared French cuisine at Papillon, al fresco Italian at Le Terrace, and a beachside grill with some of the best jerk chicken in Jamaica, the food at the Royal Plantation is a considerable step-up from most all-inclusive resorts. In addition, guests can also make special menu requests from the French chef for any items not found on the menu.

A budget hotel built around a locally-revered restaurant, the restaurant at the Moxons perfectly prepares Jamaican specialties like saltfish and ackee.