Why risk traveling to Turks and Caicos in the uncertain off-season? Thanks to an influx of discreet resorts and haute cuisine, the rewards have never been sweeter.

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Aquick hypothetical: You're in the sun-splashed Turks and Caicos, and you've been invited to a meal with several beautiful women on Ambergris Cay, one of its private islands. The chef, you are told, is a culinary wizard, capable of casting otherworldly spells. To get to Ambergris, you'll fly with the women in a private nine-seater plane for just 20 minutes. Do you go?

Hell, yeah. That's a no-brainer, right? Unfortunately, as any veteran deal pro knows, nothing comes without a catch. And in this case, there's a good chance that we'll pass through the teeth of a nasty storm to get there. From where we stand at the Providenciales airport, we can see the bruise-colored sky, the edge of a tropical ­depression that's ravaging the Dominican Republic, just 100 miles to our south. "You can turn back now if you want," says the suspiciously young pilot, "and the taxi will bring you back to your hotel. No problem."

Would you go? When I was a younger man, I would have washed a Xanax down with a slug of bourbon and winked impishly at the girls as I hopped aboard. Today, I'm not so young, and Xanax gives me stomach cramps. I watch a couple of the other passengers troop off toward the cab. But then two of the gals, who I had recently met, grab my hands and squeeze tightly. Their message is clear: We're hungry. If I die, I muse as the jet taxis along the tarmac, at least I'll die surrounded by beautiful ­women, in a private plane -- and with a tan. I've always wanted to die with a tan.

Consumable Goods

Such are the decisions one must face when traveling to Turks and Caicos during the oft-stormy season. Still, I only briefly regret the decision as we lurch and roll through the weather cell down to the Ambergris airstrip. The strip (the longest privately owned runway in the Caribbean, it can accommodate a G5) is part of the Turks & Caicos Sporting Club at Ambergris Cay (877-815-1300; tcsportingclub.com), an ultra-private residence resort where the home lots cost up to $6 million. Opened in 2003, it's part of the new wave of discreet developments that are turning Turks and Caicos into a haven for those who like their lux­ury served rare. When we get out, I ask the pilot, "So, was that fun for you?" "No, no, no, no, no," he says, the blood slowly returning to his face. But as I look around, I can see why someone might be happy to pay a steep price to live here -- and why braving the occasional off-season storm is a risk worth taking for the chance to visit these isles.

The Turks and Caicos Islands are among the last of the Caribbean's unspoiled gems. There's just one cruise-ship port (on Grand Turk island) and none of the glitzy, theme-driven mega-resorts you'll find in the U.S. Virgin Islands or Nassau. Geographically, the archipelago is a warmer-weather cousin of the Bahamas -- it's only 550 miles from Miami and two and a half hours from Manhattan as the Citations and Gulfstreams fly -- but culturally, Turks and Caicos belong to a much more laid-back, untrammeled ­species of subtropical cluster. In fact, the majority of the islands in the chain have populations in the low three digits.

The accommodations here are, for the most part, unlike any "resort" you know. They are sparsely populated yet top-tier, catering to the well-heeled visitor looking to be pampered without getting trampled. At some, like the Sporting Club, one must own (or at least, ah, intend to own) a million-dollar home even to step onto the island.

At others, the nightly rate is deterrent enough. All this, of course, may change in due time. Eventually, a cruise line will no doubt establish more beachheads, and big-bellied New Jerseyans will descend like sunburned starlings from the gangways and sky bridges. In the meantime, it remains a des­tination for doing as I recently did: enjoying the ­solace -- and the sumptuous food -- in a land rich with class and distinction.

I arrive back at the secluded Grace Bay Club (649-946-5050; gracebayclub.com) on Providenciales and take a leisurely swim off the white-sand beach. I'm clearing space in my stomach for tonight's activity, one that will presumably be less risky: I have arranged -- as could you -- for my friends and I to embark on a gourmet safari of Providenciales's top eating destinations.

We begin in Grace Bay's ridiculously grand penthouse suite, with three bedrooms, a laundry room, butler's pantry and a Jacuzzi on the wrap-around terrace. Here, the club's managing director, Nikheel Advani, a gracious Harvard-trained chap with a ­serious mane of swept-back black hair, offers us Champagne and explains the rules: We'll be eating a five-course meal tonight, with each course at a ­different top-shelf restaurant. There will be minimal hunting on this safari.

"Will it be dangerous?" I ask him.

"Not unless that Champagne goes to our heads," he says as he tops off my flute with Dom Pérignon.

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