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asked, “How far till you’re home? You
need help?” He laughed and put the
package down. “My wife, she gets so
nervous.” He took out a handkerchief
and blotted his brow. “And you?” I
asked. He smiled. “Everyone gets
nervous. It brings back everything
that’s happened before.”
CONDADO VANDERBILT is tucked
away in a ritzy area northwest of
Santurce. Everything in the hotel,
from its heavy curtains to its marble-
floored lobby, speaks of old-world
glamour. From my balcony, I could
see the beach. The sand was blond
and sun-kissed, but on the horizon,
the skies were purple and bruised.
While the reports wavered, I thought
about what it meant to live on an
island, an etching of high land
surrounded by water.
San Juan’s culinary scene has been
quietly exploding for years, but in the
weeks and months after Maria, the
chefs and restaurateurs of the city
seemed to emerge even more
impassioned than before. Since 2007,
a generation of chefs who gained
experience in overseas kitchens have
been returning, creating new
restaurants that draw on their global
influences and Puerto Rican roots.
Here the farm-to-table movement is
not only environmentally intentioned;
it is an opportunity to create culinary
and agricultural independence.
One of the most famed and early
adopters was chef Jose Enrique, whose
namesake San Juan restaurant has
used locally grown foods, nurtured
relationships with farmers, elevated
traditional dishes to high cuisine, and
done its best to divest from imports
since the early days. Today, a number
of San Juan restaurants engage in
similar culinary ethics—Vianda, Jungle
BaoBao, Verde Mesa, and Condado
Vanderbilt’s own 1919 Restaurant,
shepherded by chef Juan José Cuevas.
Cuevas spent years working at
high-end restaurants around the
world. During his time at New York
City’s Blue Hill, he became the
first Puerto Rican chef to run a
Michelin-starred kitchen. When he
returned to the island in 2012, he
was surprised to find that some of
San Juan’s fine-dining spots relied on
canned ingredients. Cuevas works
with farmers on updating their
methods. I asked whether he came
to see food differently after Maria.
“In terms of identity, no. In terms of
the importance of self-sustenance,
yes. That’s the thinking with a lot of
the farmers—we need to change the
way we do things, because we need
to be able to sustain ourselves and
not rely on outside support.” Since
Maria, Cuevas’s partners have made
their farms more resilient, using
hydroponics inside sheltered huts to
ensure their harvests aren’t ruined by
rain or harsh wind.
Agricultural investment and farm-
to-table sourcing are admirable
enough even if the kitchen is nothing
to sing about, but it helps that the
food at 1919 is damn near perfect.
Cubes of frozen watermelon,
somehow creamy, went undercover
in what at first looked like a regular
beet salad. Cod came wallowing in a
green eddy of sauce and was capped
with a delicate wing of fried yucca,
making the whole dish look like it
had been plucked out of the deep sea.
By the end of it all, I felt like my soul
had all but left my body.
BACK IN MY ROOM, I watched Dorian
make its way across the sea. The
horizon was a gradient of color—baby
blue to black to baby blue again. My
phone lit up with messages from
everyone I’d met in my time in Puerto
Rico. Did I have everything I needed?
Did I need help? Was I worried? I felt
taken care of. With the lights off, I
watched the rain patter against the
glass and thought of the parrots in
El Yunque. I wondered if they’d found
shelter, or at least each other.
Hurricane Dorian bypassed Puerto
Rico that night and landed instead in
the Bahamas, with winds reaching
185 mph. As I made my way to the
airport, the sun was out and people
were wandering the streets again. I
thought back to an encounter I’d had
earlier in my trip, in the Parque de las
Palomas in Old San Juan. I had been
gazing out at the water and sucking
on a paleta when an older gentleman
walked up, propped one foot on the
railing, and lit a cigarette. I nodded
and greeted him. “Turisteando?”
he asked. When I told him yes, he
motioned for me to come over. He
pointed down, where a street ran
below the wall, and, as if sharing a
secret, whispered, “Me too. That’s my
car with the surfboard on top.”
The man said he was Puerto
Rican, but considered himself a
tourist. “The hurricane changed my
life. I realized I’d never seen my own
country—can you imagine, an old
man like me?” He sold what little he
had and, with savings, bought a car
and a board and set about traveling
Puerto Rico. He swept his hand
toward the waves below. “The ocean
is eating the island in increments.
It’s a force to be feared, but I love it.”
What did he think, then, of the effort
to rebuild? Had he found a sense of
peace? He told me: “I know that we
have each other, and nothing lasts,
except the ocean.”
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