The lionfish story!
Soufriere is the centre of one of the most interesting conservation stories in the modern Caribbean: the ongoing effort to control the invasive lionfish and the way the island's luxury hotels have turned that effort into something quite fascinating for their guests by creating “Conservation cuisine” and adventure for the guests!
It is worth knowing the story – The lionfish is a strikingly beautiful tropical species – red and white striped, with elaborate venomous spines – native to the Indo-Pacific. Sometime in the 1980s it found its way into the Atlantic. In the Caribbean it has no natural predators. Their stomachs can expand up to 30 times their normal size, and they eat almost everything on a reef – including juvenile fish that the entire ecosystem depends on.
Scientists now accept that the species cannot be eradicated. The most effective method of controlling the population is, simply, to hunt them.
"Conservation cuisine" – the hotel response
At Jade Mountain and Anse Chastanet, executive director Karolin Troubetzkoy and her culinary team launched what they call "conservation cuisine" – building the lionfish into the resort's gourmet offering. Lionfish, as it turns out, is delicious: white, flaky, firm, with a flavour somewhere between grouper and mahi-mahi. The kitchens serve it as sashimi, as citrus ceviche wrapped in crispy tortilla, grilled, or stewed with local spices, often as part of a multi-course tasting menu paired with New World wines.
The dive operation runs alongside it. Scuba St. Lucia offers the PADI Invasive Lionfish Tracker Specialty Course – two dives that teach guests how to identify, humanely capture and remove lionfish from the reef. Divers who join can hand their catch directly to the chef, who will prepare it for their dinner that evening. A genuine hunt-to-table experience, in the most literal sense.
For guests at Viceroy Sugar Beach and elsewhere on the island, several independent operators in Soufrière offer the same. The local outfit Action Adventure Divers, run by Chester Nathoniel, is particularly well regarded – he holds the required spearfishing permit and will clean and prepare the catch on the back of the boat. Lionfish ceviche, made minutes after the fish leaves the water, is something most guests remember long after the trip