For about the eightieth time today I am convinced I cannot eat another mouthful. And for about the eigthieth time today some unutterably discreet waiter in pristine whites has glided up behind me and placed a beautiful selection of artistic morslets in front of me, and somehow, albeit mechanically, I am eating them. There's something to do with foie gras, accented with ginger; there are lobster and daikon rolls on a black plate and piquant dipping sauces and grouper and tuna and quail and herbs from the garden outside.
This food is epicurean, gastronautical, gourmet consumption on the grandest scale. I have eaten so many Michelin stars in the last 96 hours I've lost count. There have been food towers, layers, jus, crusts, purees, terrines, infusions, confits and enormous, American-style servings. I've eaten caviar, skate, smoked salmon and conch and Wagyu beef and lamb, and the sweetest drinks I have ever tasted. And I have put on half a stone. I may be a foodie, but I have never been in a world quite like this one.
Atlantis Resort on Paradise Island in the Bahamas is one of the latest places to recognise that gourmet food has gone global. It opened a decade ago with well over £100m-worth of brand new spa, waterpark, aquarium, and 11 swimming pools. In 1998 it was updated with the £300m Royal Towers complex, offering every conceivable luxury, but only in the past year have its owners cottoned on to a new way to attract tourists: food. The result is that Atlantis is now home to 35 restaurants and bars, of which several are under the names of some of the best, and most expensive, chefs in the world.
Nobu has set up an enclave there. On the hotel marina, the lovingly recreated Cafe Martinique is the latest of multi-Michelin-starred Jean-Georges Vongerichten's Bahamian outposts. He also has Dune, down the road at the One&Only resort, where I was hypnotised into eating my own body weight. When I was at Atlantis, Charlie Trotter, the renowned Chicago chef, had been shipped over to cater for the multi-millionaire resort owner Sol Kerzner's 70th birthday supper. You can also dine 'underwater' in Fathoms, surrounded by the giant aquarium on which the hotel seems to rest and which houses 200 different marine creatures: eat your seafood supper under the watchful gaze of sharks and six foot rays.
Even aside from the fish, this is an unlikely setting in which to find multi-Michelin food. It is a resort on a massive scale - the main hotel has 2,300 rooms - and most of it is coral pink. There are eight-foot green conch shells festooned on the outside of the building and from every window you can see the vast marine park and its slides and palm trees. The largely American clientele don't look like they want to stray far from the 'New York-style' burgers and sandwiches served by the Atlas Bar and Grill or the slot machines in the casino. I may be a terrible snob, but there seemed to be a lot of plaid around for a Nobu.
However, the epicurean tourist would tell me that I am wrong: today high-end restaurants are a global and extremely profitable business. And Americans in particular love the idea of a food brand, which is why Las Vegas is stuffed to the gills with extraordinary restaurants and why uber-chefs like Jean-Georges can be lured to floating casinos like Atlantis. A dedicated foodie might brave a hotel that reverberates with the sound of clanking arcade games and dice in order to try out the newest Vong or Gordon Ramsay, but there's also a whole new breed of holidaymaker who love the fact that they can laze all day in a waterpark, lose the kids' college fund at craps, then dine out in one of the best restaurants in the world.
All the global chefs are criticised for not actually being behind the wheel at most of their overseas restaurants, although most visit at least once a month. However, this is where the public has cottoned on quicker than the critics: these are brands, the chefs are businessmen, and they've refined their operations to the extent that they will largely function without them. As Jean-Georges said over breakfast at Dune (pancakes with strawberries and maple syrup), 'Even when I can't be here, I'm very much in charge, I've got my phone and email. The world is getting smaller.'
Nonetheless, the Atlantis gourmet experience is very different from what I might want from a foodie holiday. Standing in sultry heat at pre-dinner drinks on the marina, facing some of the most extravagant yachts ever, watching Bahamians demonstrate local dances while sipping an improbably sweet green cocktail full of flashing ice cubes was an odd way to start an evening out. It contrasted oddly with the dinner, which was cooked by Vongerichten and commenced with celeriac soup and spiced maple vinegar, followed by black pepper crab dumplings and cardamom-crusted rack of lamb. To say your senses are assaulted is an understatement: the setting is ostentatious to such a degree that the food almost gets lost in all the sparkle and fizz.
It's no great surprise, then, that my favourite meal of the whole trip was not in the hotel at all. I escaped on my last day and asked a taxi driver where I could get some simple local food. He dropped me under a freeway underpass and pointed me in the direction of Crazy Eddie's. I sat by his shack on the edge of a grotty harbour, on a plastic chair with a beer, and watched some blinged-up locals playing dominoes to the sound of their car stereos and the traffic while Eddie hacked at fresh conches with his machete. He presented me with a polystyrene bowl of chopped raw conch mixed with onions, chillies, tomato and lime juice and a side of deep-fried conch balls with Marie-Rose sauce from a bottle. Nothing fancy. I loved it.
Chefs who girdle the world
Tokyo
In a world where chefs now rival footballers in signing lucrative endorsements, the Japanese capital offers rich rewards. Last year Gordon Ramsay opened a restaurant at the Conrad Hotel, French superchef Joel Robuchon has L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon, while Todd English, once owner of a single acclaimed restaurant in Boston, has replicated it in Roppongi Hills. But in an especially impressive coals-to-Newcastle move, Nobu Matsuhisa, who introduced sushi to America, now has a restaurant in the country that invented it.
Las Vegas
It's Sin City, however, that now boasts the largest cluster of celebrity chefs. Bellagio houses restaurants by both Jean-Georges Vongerichten and English. There's an Alain Ducasse on the strip, and a branch of Nobu nearby. Meanwhile Robuchon has two restaurants and American Wolfgang Puck, father of the endorsed restaurant, has lent his name to no less than four.
Dubai
Dubai's big names are largely British. Ramsay has Verre at the Dubai Hilton, and Vineet Bhatia, owner of Michelin-starred Rasoi in London, has Indego at the Grosvenor House Hotel. Alternatively there's Gary Robinson, Prince Charles's former private chef at Mezzanine.
At Sea
Cruise ships represent the latest culinary frontier. Gary Rhodes sails under P&O's flag on Arcadia, Nobu has a berth on Crystal Serenity, while sister ship Crystal Symphony has signed up Puck. English's name is already on board the QM2, and he will have a 100-seater restaurant on the Queen Victoria, due to launch next year.
Essentials
British Airways Holidays (0870 243 3406; www.ba.com/holidays) offers seven nights at Atlantis, Paradise Island, from £1033pp including BA flights and transfers. More information on Atlantis is at www.atlantis.com.
