From Aruba to the Dominican Republic, Marriott is making a big culinary push in the Caribbean
From Aruba to the Dominican Republic, Marriott is making a big culinary push in the Caribbean It was like a speakeasy. Chef Andres Davila ventured into a mall in downtown Oranjestad, knocked on the door. What was inside was rather stunning. “You go in and it’s like a whole different world,” he says. The tiny local store was Rachell Peterson’s Farm a Cure Fungi, a boutique mushroom farm that has been leading the movement to provide locally-grown, locally-sourced food to Aruba’s restaurants. Davila, the executive chef at the Aruba Marriott Resort and Stellaris Casino, has been working to incorporate more local produce in the restaurants at the Palm Beach-area property. It’s a challenge: if you buy enough to support 13 different restaurants, you could leave the island without much local produce left. And Aruba’s exceedingly dry climate doesn’t make it an agricultural hotbed. But that’s where Peterson comes in, with her [...]