Shas­tri Boodan

The smell reach­es you be­fore the build­ing does.

Wood smoke drifts lazi­ly through the coun­try­side, car­ry­ing with it the com­fort­ing aro­mas of fresh­ly baked bread, bub­bling piz­za and food pre­pared the way gen­er­a­tions once knew—over fire, in clay, and with pa­tience.

Hid­den along Cun­jal Trace, just off Rochard Dou­glas Road in Bar­rack­pore, Rur­al De­lights is the kind of place that feels as though it has slipped through the cracks of time.

The dri­ve is long enough that many Trinida­di­ans jok­ing­ly de­scribe it as “be­hind God’s back”, but that re­mote­ness is part of its charm.

Leav­ing be­hind traf­fic, con­crete and the con­stant hum of ur­ban life, vis­i­tors ar­rive at what feels like a por­tal to rur­al Trinidad of decades past. A sim­ple wood­en struc­ture emerges at the bot­tom of a small hill and sits qui­et­ly amid the green­ery, re­fus­ing to an­nounce it­self as a tourist at­trac­tion. In­stead, smoke curls from the rus­tic out­door kitchen be­low, where an earth­en oven and tra­di­tion­al chul­ha fire­side con­tin­ue age-old cook­ing tra­di­tions.

It is an ex­pe­ri­ence built as much on nos­tal­gia as it is on food.

Guests are wel­comed with cups of lemon­grass tea or cof­fee—not brewed in a ma­chine, but boiled slow­ly over a wood fire. Around them, birds call from near­by trees, frogs sing af­ter rain, and the oc­ca­sion­al mon­key or tou­can makes an ap­pear­ance.

“It’s an es­cape,” says own­er Rish­ma Lall-Har­ry. “It’s the coun­try­side with lit­tle back roads and bush on the sides. You’re away from the noise. It’s a very qui­et, rus­tic es­cape.”

The rur­al re­treat was nev­er orig­i­nal­ly in­tend­ed to be­come a restau­rant.

Lall-Har­ry and her hus­band, Sunil, had en­vi­sioned us­ing their four-and-a-half-acre prop­er­ty sim­ply as a place to lime af­ter his re­tire­ment. But when the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic brought re­stric­tions on trav­el and so­cial gath­er­ings, fam­i­ly mem­bers, neigh­bours and friends found them­selves spend­ing more time to­geth­er on the prop­er­ty, ex­per­i­ment­ing with recipes and cook­ing over tra­di­tion­al fires.

“We had a small farm­ing group here,” she re­calls. “We couldn’t go out for cof­fee or lit­tle dates any­more, so we start­ed mak­ing piz­zas and peo­ple would just come to pick them up.”

As re­stric­tions eased, vis­i­tors want­ed more than take­away piz­zas—they want­ed to ex­pe­ri­ence the set­ting it­self.

That in­spired Lall-Har­ry to open Rur­al De­lights to the pub­lic, ini­tial­ly op­er­at­ing on­ly on Sat­ur­days.

To­day, the venue al­so ac­com­mo­dates pri­vate book­ings on Sun­days and week­days for birth­days and fam­i­ly gath­er­ings.

“We tai­lor every ex­pe­ri­ence to what the cus­tomer wants,” she says.

The heart of Rur­al De­lights is its earth­en oven—one that Lall-Har­ry proud­ly says is un­like any oth­er in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Rather than re­ly­ing on the tra­di­tion­al dome-shaped dirt oven com­mon­ly used for bak­ing bread, she spent months de­vel­op­ing her own cuboid de­sign ca­pa­ble of pro­duc­ing the high­er tem­per­a­tures need­ed for au­then­tic piz­zas.

“It is an ac­tu­al dirt piz­za oven,” she says proud­ly. “The tra­di­tion­al bell-shaped oven is ex­cel­lent for bread, but it couldn’t reach the tem­per­a­tures we need­ed.”

The re­designed oven now cooks piz­zas in ap­prox­i­mate­ly four min­utes while im­part­ing a smoky, earthy flavour im­pos­si­ble to repli­cate in con­ven­tion­al ovens.

“We do sour­dough piz­zas, fresh breads and every­thing has that unique taste from the fire and the earth.”

Fresh pro­duce grown on the prop­er­ty of­ten finds its way on­to the menu, adding an­oth­er lay­er to the farm-to-ta­ble ex­pe­ri­ence.

Tra­di­tion­al lunch­es fea­tur­ing lo­cal cur­ries, bar­be­cue chick­en, pro­vi­sion dish­es and co­conut bake with salt­fish buljol are pre­pared us­ing Lall-Har­ry’s home­made cur­ry blends and sea­son­ings.

She has al­so ex­pand­ed in­to small-scale agro-pro­cess­ing, pro­duc­ing pep­per sauces, herbal teas, home­made wines, masalas and oth­er lo­cal­ly made prod­ucts avail­able to vis­i­tors.

“We’ve had to sim­pli­fy the menu be­cause de­mand has grown so much,” she says. “I just couldn’t keep up.”

In­ter­na­tion­al vis­i­tors have al­so be­come reg­u­lar cus­tomers.

Fish­ing ponds stocked main­ly with tilapia pro­vide an­oth­er at­trac­tion, while chil­dren en­joy rid­ing box carts around the prop­er­ty or sim­ply ex­plor­ing the grounds. Ham­mocks sway be­neath trees, invit­ing guests to slow down and em­brace the pace of rur­al life.

“We did every­thing our­selves,” says Lall-Har­ry. “Every­thing here is hand­made. I grew up do­ing these kinds of things.”

De­spite grow­ing pop­u­lar­i­ty, she has lit­tle in­ter­est in turn­ing Rur­al De­lights in­to a large com­mer­cial en­ter­prise. “I don’t want to lose the rus­tic feel­ing. That’s what makes this place spe­cial.”

For Lall-Har­ry, suc­cess has nev­er been mea­sured sole­ly by prof­its. “It’s not so much about the mon­ey,” she says. “I love do­ing this. It makes me hap­py to meet peo­ple and cook for them. I get this sense of joy when vis­i­tors ar­rive and ex­pe­ri­ence every­thing we have here.”

As an­oth­er batch of hops bread dis­ap­pears in­to the glow­ing earth­en oven and emerges just min­utes lat­er with its crisp crust and smoky aro­ma, it be­comes easy to un­der­stand why peo­ple will­ing­ly make the long dri­ve in­to Bar­rack­pore’s coun­try­side.

Some places are worth get­ting lost to find.