Prices are per person for a main course at dinner.

The beauty of St. Thomas, St. John, and St. Croix has attracted a cadre of professionally trained chefs who know how to prepare fresh fish and local fruits. You can dine on everything from terrific, cheap local dishes such as goat water (a spicy stew) and fungi (cornmeal and okra) to imports such as hot pastrami sandwiches and raspberries in crème fraîche. Fresh local seafood is plentiful and always good; wahoo, mahimahi, and conch are popular.

In large hotels you'll pay prices similar to those in New York City or Paris. Fancy restaurants may have a token chicken or pasta dish under $20, but otherwise, main courses are pricey. You can, however, find good inexpensive Caribbean restaurants. To snack on some local fare, order a johnnycake (a deep-fried dough round made of cornmeal and white flour) or a thick slice of dumb bread (a dense round loaf often cut into triangles and filled with cheddar cheese) from any of the mobile food vans parked all over the island.

Dining is informal. Few restaurants require a jacket and tie. Still, at dinner in the snazzier places, shorts and T-shirts are inappropriate; men would do well to wear slacks and a shirt with buttons. Dress codes rarely require women to wear skirts, but you'll never go wrong with something flowing.