“Eat Well. Do Good.”

.. So self-informs the charitable ethos of popular The Local & Co. in Speighstown, St. Peter, Barbados, and every revisit to the quaintly spacious and welcoming beachside restaurant only reconfirms that this ideology is principal in the the establishment’s operations.

The Local’s main aim is two-fold — first, to better employ the island’s rich resources of farmers, butchers, “fisherfolk” — who see their trade and livelihoods co-opted by imports—, and two, to make customers proudly aware of these local, professional food providers’ contributions to the artistically crafted, delicious menu offerings that they as diners can enjoy with every Local & Co. meal.

It was, as usual, well worth the hour-long (very bumpy) bus ride from Dover Road to Queen Street West to avail myself of the new, summer, farm-to-table slate of brunch dishes.

Though I was dining alone, I was inclined, as it often happens (especially with longer trips), to try more than one dish to get a fuller appreciation of the brunch menu (and to properly represent that appreciation here). So my personal preference took me to the buttermilk fried chicken and waffles, and my nostalgic curiosity landed me on the tres leches brioche French toast. (But not before happily biding my time with a starter of “local fries” — nicely fried slivers of breadfruit, cassava, and sweet potato.

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The near candied, crispy fried chicken skin was a delight in both flavor and texture, and practically crumbled away from the flavorful, juicy chicken. The smoked chilli honey it arrives with deftly serves to enhance the balance between salty and sweet and the introduction of smokiness and heat. I chose to amp up the hot spiciness with the additional hot pepper sauce, smoothing that heat out with the butter which easily melting and settled cozily into the crevices of the waffles underneath the fried chicken — the waffle itself cakey enough with a sturdy exterior crunch to hold the weight of the chicken and maintain its structure against the trio of tasty sauces, all while being airy and fluffy on its inside.

The tres leches French toast’s brioche base was likewise airy and light (as is brioche’s job!), and even with the iterations of the “three milks” — one as a coconut cream, one as a passionfruit curd, and one as a caramel sauce — the dish finishes rather light (though less so on top of chicken and waffles)

The two families seated together for brunch next to me expressed how pleased they were with their dishes as well — commenting, as visitors from the UK, that the Local was their favorite restaurant to date during this present weeks-long visit. And I made a note to order the handsomely hearty-looking Local & Co smash burger, as the two adults of the group who ordered one both completely devoured theirs. (I didn’t see if the younger child finished his, but he was certainly trying to.)

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These lovely dishes, along with the entire menu, are all inventively (re)imagined by pedigreed UK chef-patron and prolific cookbook author Sophie Michell, who, like Local & Co.’s founder Ian McNeel, has focused both her own innate sense of good, as well as her trained skills, on serving Barbaods’ local farmers, its local community, and any and all diners whose support of the Local’s altruistically supportive efforts are grandly and richly rewarded with gifts for the tastebuds, tummy, and conscience.

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The service is as meticulously welcoming and professional as the dishes are attractively plated (to the point of spoiling me, as I realize when privy to lacking service at other businesses), and the restaurant’s newest expansion along the beach continues to be decorously inviting comforting as ever.

It’s great to know that I am “doing good” by eating (very) well at the Local & Co. — whether for brunch or their other meal services — and often the pleasure and gratitude for a delicious meals that helps the Barbados community that remains after my meals there remind me to do good and do well in the rest of my life.

(And as I knew that this lovely, many plated brunch would be my only necessary meal for the whole day, I still decided — because we can — to take home some more conscientious goodness in the form of a nearly oversized cinnamon bun, gracious with smooth, creamy frosting, and whose indulgently aromatic hints of butter and cinnamon folded and wafting through its airy rolls were the perfect compliment for the following day’s morning coffee.)

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