Eating and drinking in Guadeloupe

June 04, 2024

Eating and drinking in Guadeloupe

Before we left for Guadeloupe, I joked to everyone that I'd be on a terrace drinking rum all day. It was partially a joke, partially as a mental reassurance if I'd not be mobile enough to do any excursion. I pictured streets with bars near the beach, but in reality I have not drunk much rum at all and I was much less on a terrace than anticipated.

Horeca landscape

The first thing I had to get used to is that the town simply are not made with an active catering landscape as we are used in Europe. In our town Pointe-Noire, the coastal road passes the Caribbean Sea, but contrary to what we'd have in Europe, there is not a line of restaurants or bars. Just one take-away/take-in chicken grill hut with some plastic chairs. Other restaurants exist but are hidden in small streets and alleys, up the hill or around the counter. Only in Deshaies we found multiple restaurants beachside aligned. (ha, no wonder they film Death in Paradise there ;) ). When we asked our local hosts some tips to go out for dinner in our town, she could not really answer.

Restaurants also look hidden because I realized after a few days that the heat simply doesn't invite for outdoor terraces a lot. Restaurants and bars are more inside or behind coverage such as wicker mats/ walls/ ... that provide shade. They are often very small scale and could be located next to a junkyard etc. But they are there, and I had to learn to detect them in the landscape.

The catering landscape was also different that many restaurants are not open each day but even often not in the evening. So most chance to go out for food is at lunchtime. And the official opening hours (on billboards around the restaurant or on Google or etc...) are variable, and an "open" restaurant might be closed when you show up. Chill, go with the flow.

And so we did.
We first and mostly enjoyed the local food and drinks near the many beaches. Because most beaches have some restaurants around the parking lots, or at least food trucks. And the best food I have eaten is with my feet in the sand.

Drinks

We received at our little house a nice Ti Punch in our fridge as a welcome gift.

Must rum we drunk were indeed in very sweet Punch cocktails. The local cocktail you see everywhere is Planteur. Nice to have a taste, but much too sweet for my taste with the Guave, pineapple and Mango and other fruits that are usually added to it. You can find Mojito's, but that's really not a local drink.

A toast at the local take-away/eat in chicken grill

For the children there were many sweet juices with lots of tropical fruits and also mocktails

While Guadeloupe is of course France and therefore has sufficient available, the hot weather led me more to enjoying a nice cool beer now and then. The beer we saw most was "Carib" but is not a local beer from Guadeloupe. There were also other lagers that were refreshing and more local but not all around.

We spotted some familiar signs in Deshaies.

Food:

The local cuisine is creole food, a mixture of native, American, African and Indian influences. I had assumed that would end up a much more complex food pallete but actually the food is very pure and uncomplicated. There is a clear influence from the slavery kitchen before.

At each foodtruck we could buy the traditional local "sandwich" Botik, which is the bread the slaves could cook for themselves. With a lack of yeast and ovens, they kneeded dough balls and deep-fried them briefly. Then they now get filled with a rich variety of ingredients such as chicken, cheese, eggs, tuna, ...
The result is a delicious but very filling snack.

We also crossed 2 manioc mills where fresh manioc roots were getting shredded into manioc flour where then flat cookies are baked, filled with a jam or cocos. It crumbles like hell and desintegrates while eating so it's a big mess but I loved the new taste to me very much.

Every menu has accra's as starters or you get them spontaneously as snacks with a menu. These are small dough balls, potentially filled with vegetables or fish.

The rest of the cuisine consists of a lot of grilled chicken. (chickens run free around the country everywhere by the way) or grilled fish (including fresh water shrimp, octopus, ...). These come with Caribbean herbs eg the Colombo mix (chicken Colombo is on each menu) and are accompanied by rice, sweet potatoes (fried or mashed potatoes), mashed potatoes with green banana and lentils. The potato fries are less crispy than we are used too but deliciously herbed.