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Experience

The Creole Table

Fish on ice in the Victoria market, a roadside grill at dusk, and octopus in coconut milk somewhere with six tables. The food is the part of Seychelles the resorts under-tell.

At a glanceOn land
How longA meal at a timeA meal at a time, all week
How hardNoneSitting down, largely
SeasonYear-roundThe market runs on the fishing rather than the calendar

Start at the market in Victoria, early, while the fish is still being laid out. Tuna in slabs the colour of raw beetroot, job fish and red snapper on ice, parrotfish still holding their colour. Around them the fruit stalls, and behind those the spice sellers with cinnamon bark, nutmeg, vanilla pods and small pyramids of chilli that are not for tourists. It is a working market that has been in the same place a long time, and the point of going is to see what the island actually eats.

By evening the smoke starts. The best food in Seychelles comes off charcoal in places with no sign, a grill set up near the road or at the top of a beach, a fish split and scored and cooked whole, lime, chilli, a foil tray. You eat it standing up or sitting on a wall and it costs a fraction of anything with a tablecloth.

The kitchen version is Creole cooking proper, and it is a genuine hybrid: African, French, Indian and Chinese, worked out over two hundred years on islands where everything either grew here or came off a boat. Octopus curry in coconut milk is the dish to judge a place by. Bouillon, satini of green papaya, salt fish, breadfruit in every form somebody could think of, and ladob, plantain or breadfruit in coconut milk with nutmeg, at the end of it.

Go looking for the small places. Six tables, a handwritten board, someone’s mother in the back. They are not always open, they are not always where you were told, and that is part of it. Ask the person at your hotel who is from the island rather than the one at the desk.

The resorts do a Creole night, and some of them do it well. But a week here where every meal happens inside the hotel is a week where you tasted the country second-hand. See what else the Seychelles islands offer beyond the beach.

Good to know

  • Market and restaurant hours are set locally and shift. We check what is open on your dates rather than promising a day.
  • Carry small cash. Grills and market stalls rarely take cards, and the smallest places never do.
  • The chilli on the side is stronger than it looks. Taste it before you spoon it.
  • Almost all groceries are imported, which shows on menus. It is worth deciding your board basis with that in mind.
  • Fruit bat appears on some traditional menus. It is genuinely local, and worth knowing about before it arrives rather than after.
  • Book anywhere small a day ahead if you can. Six tables fill quickly and nobody is expanding.

Market and restaurant opening days and hours, Creole-night arrangements at hotels, cooking-class availability and every price on this page are set locally, and change often. We confirm what applies to your dates in writing before you pay anything.

Charcoal smoke and lime, somewhere between the road and the sand.

Where to do it

Where we arrange the creole table

Start from the destination, and we will build the days around this.

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Questions we are actually asked

What should we actually order?
Grilled fish first, whatever came in that morning, split, scored and cooked over charcoal with lime and chilli. Then octopus curry in coconut milk, which is the dish people go home talking about. Breadfruit as chips or boiled, satini on the side, and ladob for dessert if anyone is still hungry.
Is Creole food very spicy?
The base is not. It is coconut milk, garlic, ginger, turmeric and cinnamon rather than heat. The chilli comes separately, in a small dish, and it is usually far stronger than it looks. Add it in stages.
Is eating out expensive?
Restaurants set their own prices and they range widely, from a takeaway grill to a hotel dining room. Almost everything on these islands is imported, which shows on a menu. We are happy to talk through what a week of eating out looks like against a half-board rate before you book, and we quote the board basis in writing either way.
Should we book half board at the hotel?
It depends where you are staying. On Mahé and La Digue there is enough within reach that tying yourself to the hotel dining room every night is a waste of the trip. In more isolated resorts, half board is simply practical. We say which is which for the hotel you are considering rather than selling you the higher board basis by default.
Can we do a cooking class?
Some hotels run them and there are independent cooks who teach in their own kitchens, which is the better version. Availability is set by whoever is teaching and it is often a small group, so it needs asking about early. We confirm what is running for your dates.

Keep reading

Where to go next

Each of these answers one of the questions this page opens.

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