Fly to Grenada and you expect postcard views. What greets you after landing is far messier and more interesting: markets that smell of nutmeg, roads that submit to the hills rather than levelling them. The last stretch to the Calabash runs through a gate of palms, beyond which the island’s noise grows quieter and the town falls away behind.
The Island’s Quiet Edge
Lance aux Épines is Grenada’s quiet edge: a narrow headland in the south, twenty minutes’ drive from the airport and far enough from the bustle of the capital. Prickly Bay lies sheltered between two headlands, its water rarely stirred.
The hotel itself hides behind gardens that have been left to grow for decades: coconut palms, hibiscus, a lawn that runs all the way to the sand. Low, whitewashed buildings sit in a horseshoe around this garden, none rising higher than the palms that shade them. The hotel’s name comes from the calabash tree, whose hard, round fruit has long been carved on the island into bowls, vessels and drums.
A Missed Flight
The story begins with a missed return flight. In 1985, Leo Garbutt travels to Grenada to negotiate the purchase of a rum distillery; a delayed flight lands him at the Calabash instead, where he feels, as he later puts it, an “infectious happiness”. In 1987 he buys the property together with his wife Lilian, with 22 rooms and no experience whatsoever in hospitality.
Three daughters grow up alongside the business. Two of them, Adèle and Beth, return from England in 2012 to take over marketing and the kitchen; the youngest, Bobbie, now runs the family’s own organic farm in the north of the island. In 2022, Leo Garbutt receives the MBE—Member of the Order of the British Empire—from Prince William, in recognition of his services to tourism.
Grown, Not Designed
The Calabash feels less designed than grown: single-storey buildings in muted white, deep verandas that cast shade in the sun. Inside, pale wood dominates alongside rattan and linen in broken, never garish tones.
The new Hillside Penthouse Suites, opening in June 2026, deliberately break with this register: open floor plans, panoramic windows onto Prickly Bay, a private pool deck that dissolves the line between indoors and out. The bathrooms are flooded with light, with freestanding tubs and double basins. Sustainability shows itself quietly rather than on display: solar panels on the roofs cover a third of the electricity needs, cisterns collect rainwater for the gardens that wrap the house like a second, green façade.
Thirty-Six Suites
Lobby, lounge and reception are loosely arranged around the garden. 36 suites are spread across seven categories, from the 480-square-foot Westside Suite right on the beach to the 2,670-square-foot Hillside Penthouse Suite up on the hillside above the bay.
Every bed is king-size and splittable, and every suite has its own balcony or terrace with a sea view. The ground-floor Pool Suites have private pools and freestanding outdoor tubs; the Penthouse Suite has a spiral staircase down to a second level, with two bedrooms available on request. Amazon Echo speakers, well-stocked minibars and Elemis toiletries are standard throughout, without ever feeling like items on a checklist.
Three Kitchens, One Philosophy
What doesn’t grow on the island doesn’t reach the plate. It’s as simple as that. Rhodes Restaurant, named after the British chef Gary Rhodes, who was on friendly terms with the house from a visit in 1998, serves a seasonal, Caribbean-inflected menu beneath flowering vines trailing from the ceiling, and was named Grenada’s best hotel restaurant by the World Culinary Awards.
By the pool, Nori serves Japanese-contemporary cooking and a raw bar; right on the beach, The Beach Club is devoted to tapas and the day’s catch, grilled or folded into home-made corn tortillas.
Presiding over all three is Beth Garbutt, Ballymaloe-trained Food & Beverage Director and daughter of the house: if the mango isn’t ripe, it doesn’t go on the menu—a principle that also holds for the fishermen’s boats, which catch strictly by line. Breakfast is served on the beach or on your private balcony.
Zero Miles
The spa calls itself Zero Miles: almost everything used here comes from the island. Honey-and-moringa facials, deep-tissue massages using the same oil, wraps made from Grenadian, antioxidant-rich cocoa—the spa menu reads, in places, like the restaurant’s.
Anyone still feeling jet lag in their bones can book one of the treatments designed specifically to reset the sleep cycle. Outside, the infinity pool sits between gardens that run down to the beach, complemented weekly by yoga and pilates classes under the open sky. Nothing here pushes you towards activity. It’s enough to lie down and watch time slow.
Beyond the Bay
Anyone making the trip to St. George’s—twenty minutes’ drive—should continue it on foot: Fort George, dating from the early eighteenth century, looks out over a natural harbour ranked among the finest in the Caribbean, and Young Street strings together a two-hundred-year-old trading town of workshops, where the Yellow Poui Art Gallery has shown Grenadian art since 1968 and Art Fabrik hand-dyes batik cloth.
In Market Square, women sell nutmeg every morning in every stage of processing, from whole fruit to powder—a ritual older than any hotel on the island. Those who go deeper will find the world’s oldest underwater sculpture park off Molinère Bay: laid down by Jason deCaires Taylor in 2006 and expanded in 2023 with the “Coral Carnival” series, for which Grenadian artists translated the masks of the Spicemas carnival into concrete. Little known beyond the island: the River Antoine rum distillery in the north-east, which still runs on a waterwheel dating from 1785—the very distillery whose purchase first brought Leo Garbutt to Grenada, before he took over the Calabash instead. To the south, it’s worth the detour to the Art and Soul Gallery in Grand Anse, run by the Grenadian artist Susan Mains.
Sorted by Interest
Grenada is best sorted by interest, not by sight.
Water: the hotel’s own dive centre, Scuba West Indies, runs PADI courses and trips out to the Bianca C, the 1961 wreck known as the “Titanic of the Caribbean”, as well as to the underwater sculpture park, where turtles drift between the figures; catamaran sailing, stand-up paddleboarding and snorkelling are free for guests, barracuda and seahorses included.
Culture: a morning in St. George’s with Fort George, market stalls and Young Street’s galleries, or dive to the Molinère Bay sculptures instead.
Land: trips into the volcanic interior reach Grand Etang’s crater lake and the seven cascades of Seven Sisters Waterfalls; the family’s organic farm, L’Esterre, in the north offers cocoa and spice tours with tasting.
Movement: two floodlit tennis courts, a gym open around the clock, weekly yoga and pilates classes, discounted access to the Grenada Golf Club.
Family: children aged six and up are welcome in all three restaurants, younger ones too at Christmas; Friday cooking demonstrations and a Sunday fruit tasting invite guests to join in.
Indulgence: afternoon tea in the lounge, cocktails with a Caribbean twist, private beach dinners under the stars, Tuesday Grill Night with steel pan, Thursday Bistro Night with live jazz.
And for anyone who wants none of it: nobody need justify the hammock strung between two palms.
The Essentials
36 suites across seven categories, largest first: Hillside Penthouse Suite (2,670 sq ft, from June 2026), Penthouse Suite (2,000 sq ft), Pool Suite and Superior Deluxe Suite (1,100 sq ft each). Three restaurants: Rhodes Restaurant, Nori, The Beach Club. The Spa at Calabash: Zero Miles treatments using honey, moringa and cocoa. Infinity pool, two floodlit tennis courts, 24-hour gym, on-site PADI dive centre. Breakfast, afternoon tea and evening canapés included. Children welcome from age six, no age limit at Christmas. Non-residents welcome at all three restaurants.
