St. John may be small and secluded, but elite visitors still demand meals that are tasty and trendy. Certainly for its size it has a large number of outstanding eateries. Whether or not there's someone famous at the next table, you can count on fabulous cuisine. The hotel restaurants, especially at Caneel Bay and the Westin, offer great food and a potential brush with celebritude. Caneel has two fine dining rooms, Turtle Bay Estate House and Equator. The latter, located in an old sugar mill, specializes in foods from equatorial areas: Egyptian, Thai, Brazilian and, of course, Caribbean. Ellington's at Gallows Bay offers a more Continental menu. The views over Cruz Bay to St. Thomas are terrific as is the wine cellar.

Otherwise, Cruz Bay is the center of the action, which starts right at street level with Joe's. The many stateside grills that aspire to the appellation ''barbecue shack'' would do well to take a lesson. You could call the decor minimalist which, since it has no walls, seems accurate. What it does have is superb 'cue served al fresco. Denzel Washington, we're told, gave it two thumbs up. Either that or he was trying to keep Joe's barbecue sauce from running onto his shirt.

Sooner or later, it seems everyone winds up at Morgan's Mango a few steps up the street. It's semiformal, which, in practice, means that the wearing of shoes is encouraged, and the kitchen has excelled at what the chefs call ''neo-Caribbean'' food for years. Tables are on a covered porch thickly hung with ferns and such. Morgan's also takes reservations via VHF radio (ch. 16) if you're coming by boat.

The Fish Trap

is a Cruz Bay fixture, and its conch fritters are legendary. If your experience with conch to date has been with bits of rubber embedded in underdone dough, you might want to stop here as soon as you get off the ferry and see how it's supposed to taste.

Chateau Bordeaux

is a must. The drive is spectacular, winding up a switchback mountain road to the 1,200-foot ridgetop. The view could make you forget to eat, but don't do that: Chef John Bullock knows how to cook, and there's an excellent wine selection as well.

Posted online 02/25/02.