Seychelles
Creole island cooking where the day's fish meets coconut, chilli and lime — and a beach to eat it on.
Seychellois food is Creole to its bones: whatever the boats bring in, cooked with coconut, chilli and lime. The default and the delight is grilled fish — a whole bourgeois (red snapper) scored, rubbed with a chilli-garlic-ginger paste and charred over coals, eaten with rice and a spoon of fiery chutney under a takamaka tree.
The island's signature is kari koko, fish or octopus simmered slow in coconut milk with turmeric and curry leaf — French, Indian, African and Chinese kitchens all folded into one pot. Look for the sharp thrill of satini reken, shark flaked with lime and bilimbi, and cooling ladob, ripe plantain and sweet potato stewed in sweet coconut milk. Breadfruit turns up boiled, fried, everywhere. And the drink is unambiguous: cold dark Takamaka rum or a light SeyBrew, best taken with sand underfoot as the sun goes down.
- Grilled fish (chargrilled with chilli & lime)
- Octopus curry (kari ourite)
- Creole fish curry (coconut & spice)
- Ladob (plantain in coconut milk)
- Shark chutney (satini reken)
- Breadfruit (friyapen)
- Takamaka rum
