Culinary Capital of the Eastern Caribbean Sea : Tiny St. Martin makes a Grand Case for lovers of gourmet French cuisine.

One balmy evening in St. Martin, when those easterlies called trade winds were tickling the olive trees, I left the hotel L’Habitation in search of a little exercise and a light supper.

My walk was short: I found an open-air bistro--La Louisiane--next to the marina. A chalkboard menu listed onion soup, vichyssoise, escargots, grilled red snapper, roast lamb, omelets and other hallmarks of French cuisine.

I ordered an omelet fines herbes .

The waitress shook her head.

“We’re out of fines herbes ,” she said. “Maybe it will come tomorrow . . . maybe the next day. All our food is imported, here on the island.”

Amused by the notion of running out of herbes , I settled for a cheese omelet with crusty French bread and a glass of house wine, Fleur de Blanc. La Louisiane turned out to be a cash-only cafe, but, as in all of St. Martin, U.S. dollars were welcome.

While the Dutch side of the 37-square-mile, two-nation island (they call it Sint Maarten) has long been busy with Caribbean cruise passengers, casinos, the island’s international jet airport and large resorts, the French side has relied mostly on its gastronomic reputation. The fabled cuisine is as big an attraction as the natural wonders: the sheltered coves, clear diving waters, coral reefs and white-sand beaches.

Only recently has the French side concentrated on building hotels--insisting on low-rise, West Indies architecture while growing from 800 guest rooms in 1984 to more than 3,500 this fall, with the opening of Le Meridien’s luxury wing called Le Domaine. This 150-acre resort, at the end of a road on the north coast at Anse Marcel, offers unusual privacy. Its wide arc of beach is securely nestled between sheer green hills, which is one reason it was chosen as the site for the 1989 summit meeting of President Bush and French President Francois Mitterrand.

The gourmet capital of St. Martin is the tiny village of Grand Case, where restored waterfront houses host such winners as Le Fish Pot, Chez Martine, L’Escapade and Le Tastevin, whose owners and menu are from Burgundy. Several of the top restaurants, like their French counterparts, close annually for the months of August or September.

Grand Case is on the northwest coast, no more than 25 minutes from any hotel on the island. Besides gourmet restaurants, there are the popular “lolos,” tiny seaside stands frequented by natives--and savvy visitors--who hunger for grilled lobster and local dishes.

Three miles south, at the port of Marigot, a lively market erupts each Wednesday and Saturday as schooners from nearby islands unload fresh fruits and vegetables and spices. Chefs come to select the catch of the day.

La Vie en Rose, an old-time balconied restaurant, faces the Marigot harbor, next to an Italian favorite, Messalina. A block away is the popular Bar de la Mer, where sandwiches and pizza are accompanied by the Dutch Heineken beer. The tricolor flag of France hangs out front, flanked by the Stars and Stripes.

Marigot has French bakeries, brasseries and shaded sidewalk cafes--several sprinkled among the upscale boutiques along Rue Charles de Gaulle. Croissants, baguettes and espresso are as important to the local regime as conch and peas and rice.

I rode around the island with Bernadette Davis, a fortysomething native of St. Martin who lived for a while on Staten Island before coming home again.

“We used to raise all kinds of vegetables and fruits here on the island,” she said, “so don’t tell me we can’t. People just think it’s easier to work in tourism than to farm. In the old days--especially in July--when you would get to this turnoff to the hill town of Colombier, you could already smell the sweet mangoes.”

A one-lane road, as pleasant as a country lane in Provence, rambles up from near Marigot to Colombier, near the center of the island. There it ends amid tangles of pink coralita, the national flower. Heaps of gray stones form walls along the road and up the hillsides where a few cattle and goats roam.

Colombier is a little cooler than the coast, a place of artists’ studios, a music workshop, noisy roosters and a fine Creole kitchen called La Rhumerie.

The obsession with seasoning goes way back in St. Martin’s history. The Indians named the island Sualouiga, or Land of Salt, because of the abundant salt-producing ponds. European nations laid claim to St. Martin because of that precious commodity, as well as its strategic location and harbors.

Harvesting salt was hard work, Bernadette Davis remembers, but it was the mainstay of the economy until the industry faded in the 1950s.

“You have to be careful when you scoop it up,” she said. “It is so sharp it cuts your fingers. We used to export it to all the neighboring islands. Now we have to buy salt in boxes from Dominique.”