Guadeloupe Food Guide: Where to Eat in Pointe-à-Pitre

Guadeloupe is a butterfly-shaped French archipelago in the Caribbean, and its food is Creole cooking at its most generous: fried bokits stuffed at roadside vans, goat colombo on Sunday, fish grilled on the beach and a ti-punch before almost every meal. This Guadeloupe food guide covers the dishes to know, how to read a French menu with Creole dish names, tipping and paying in euros, and where to eat in Pointe-à-Pitre, Le Gosier, Sainte-Anne, Saint-François, Deshaies and the outer islands of Les Saintes and Marie-Galante. The two "wings" of the main island eat a little differently: Grande-Terre is flat, with beaches and resort towns, while Basse-Terre is mountainous and green, with rivers, coffee, cocoa and freshwater prawns. And each small island has its own speciality, from the coconut tarts of Les Saintes to the very strong rum of Marie-Galante.

What to eat in Guadeloupe: 12 dishes to know

These are the Creole dishes you will meet on menus, at roadside vans and at family tables, with the island or town they are most associated with.

• Bokit (everywhere, Sainte-Anne and Pointe-à-Pitre above all): Guadeloupe's signature street food, a round of dough fried until puffy, split open and filled with salt cod, chicken, ham and cheese, tuna or egg, with salad and sauce. It descends from the johnny cake of the English-speaking islands.
• Accras (everywhere): small fried fritters of salt cod (morue), shrimp or vegetables with herbs and pepper, served with the aperitif.
• Boudin créole (everywhere): spicy blood sausage with herbs and pepper, served warm as a starter. Look also for boudin de lambi or fish boudin.
• Colombo de cabri (everywhere): goat curry spiced with colombo powder, a legacy of Indian workers brought to Guadeloupe in the 19th century. Chicken, pork and fish colombo are just as common.
• Matété (Easter and Pentecost): rice cooked with land crabs, herbs and spices, the dish Guadeloupean families cook together at Easter, often at the beach. Also called matété à crabes.
• Court-bouillon de poisson (everywhere): a thick, spicy stew of fish such as red snapper in tomato, onion and pepper sauce, served with rice.
• Poulet boucané (everywhere, at weekends): chicken smoked over sugar cane and wood in half-drum grills by the roadside, sold with sauce chien.
• Ouassous (Basse-Terre): large freshwater prawns from the island's rivers, grilled, in blaff or in a Creole sauce.
• Chiquetaille and féroce (everywhere): starters of shredded salt cod with lime, onion and pepper (chiquetaille), and mashed avocado with salt cod, cassava flour and lots of hot pepper (féroce).
• Bébélé (Marie-Galante): a hearty dish of beef tripe with dumplings, green bananas, breadfruit and other provisions, the traditional dish of Marie-Galante.
• Tourment d'amour (Les Saintes): a small tart of soft sponge over coconut jam in a pastry base, sold by women at the ferry dock in Terre-de-Haut. The name means "torment of love".
• Kassav (Basse-Terre, around Pointe-Noire): a thick cassava pancake cooked on a griddle, filled with coconut or other sweet or savoury fillings, made in small cassava workshops.

To finish, look for sorbet coco, coconut ice cream churned by hand in a wooden barrel, sinobol (shaved ice with syrup), blanc-manger coco (coconut pudding) and gâteau patate (sweet potato cake). To drink, Guadeloupe makes rhum agricole from fresh cane juice. The ti-punch (white rum, lime and cane sugar) is the island ritual, and the white rums of Marie-Galante are traditionally bottled at a very high strength, often 59 percent. A planteur is rum with fruit juices, shrubb is an orange peel liqueur served at Christmas, and fresh sugar cane juice is sold at roadsides and markets. Coffee grown on the slopes of Basse-Terre is worth trying too.

How to read a menu in Guadeloupe

Menus in Guadeloupe are in French, laid out the French way, with Creole dish names and local ingredients. Restaurants often offer a formule or menu at a fixed price and a plat du jour at lunch, and beach restaurants write the catch of the day on a board. Remember that an entrée in French is a starter, not a main. These are the words to know.

Tipping, tax and paying the bill

As in mainland France, service is included in restaurant prices in Guadeloupe (service compris), so tipping is optional. Locals round up or leave a few euros for good service, and at bokit vans, bakeries, roadside grills and market stalls nobody expects a tip. Guadeloupe has its own lower rate of French VAT (TVA), which is already included in menu prices. Our guide to tax and service charges on menus explains how these lines work around the world.

The currency is the euro (€). Cards, including contactless, are accepted in most restaurants and shops, but bokit vans, roadside grills, sorbet coco sellers, market stalls and many places on Les Saintes and Marie-Galante want cash, and ATMs are fewer on the outer islands. Prices are generally higher than in mainland France, especially for imported products. If you are visiting from outside the eurozone and a card machine offers to charge you in your home currency, choose euros: our guide to paying in local currency explains why.

Lunch runs from about 12pm to 2pm, and dinner from about 7:30pm. Many restaurants close on Sunday evening and Monday, and some close for part of the low season, around September and October. Bokit vans do their best trade in the evening, and roadside chicken grills appear at weekends.

Where to eat in Guadeloupe, island by island

Guadeloupe is an archipelago: the two wings of the main island, Grande-Terre and Basse-Terre, plus the smaller islands of Les Saintes, Marie-Galante and La Désirade, reached by ferry. Jump to a place:

• Pointe-à-Pitre
• Le Gosier
• Sainte-Anne
• Saint-François
• Deshaies
• Les Saintes
• Marie-Galante

Where to eat in Pointe-à-Pitre

Pointe-à-Pitre, on Grande-Terre where the two wings meet, is Guadeloupe's commercial centre and its best place for markets. The Marché Saint-Antoine, the iron-framed covered market in the centre, is famous for its spice sellers, who sell colombo powder, vanilla, nutmeg, cinnamon and ready-mixed rum punches, along with fruit and madras fabric. Down by the harbour, the fish market at La Darse is busiest in the morning when the boats come in, and the waterfront has stalls selling fruit, juices and snacks. Around the Place de la Victoire, the main square, there are cafés and snack bars.

Lunch is the meal to eat in Pointe-à-Pitre: small Creole restaurants in the centre serve a plat du jour of colombo, court-bouillon or fricassée to office workers, and bokit vans and snack bars feed everyone else. In the evening the centre is quiet, and locals eat at the Bas-du-Fort marina on the edge of town, which has a long row of restaurants and bars by the water, or in Le Gosier. The Mémorial ACTe, the museum of slavery and the Caribbean, is near the harbour and makes a good morning before lunch.

Where to eat in Le Gosier

Le Gosier, a few kilometres east of Pointe-à-Pitre, is Guadeloupe's oldest beach resort, with hotels around the Pointe de la Verdure and a small islet, the Îlet du Gosier, just offshore. The main street of Le Gosier has restaurants, bars and pizzerias, and the beaches have restaurants serving grilled fish, langouste, accras and cocktails. It is the island's busiest place for nightlife, and restaurants stay open later here than elsewhere.

The town's food runs from beach snacks to more formal restaurants, with plenty of Creole menus alongside French and Italian. In Le Gosier, the evening routine is a ti-punch at sunset, accras and boudin, then fish or colombo. The Bas-du-Fort marina is at the edge of the commune and easy to combine with an evening here.

Where to eat in Sainte-Anne

Sainte-Anne, on the south coast of Grande-Terre, is a seaside town with a long, sheltered beach right in the centre, a church on the square and a row of market stalls by the sand selling spices, punches, madras fabric and crafts. It is one of the best places in Guadeloupe for bokits: vans and stalls along the seafront and the main road fry them to order, and they are best eaten on the beach. Beach restaurants and snack bars along the bay serve accras, grilled fish, chicken and sorbet coco.

East of the town, the beach of Bois Jolan has shallow lagoon water and is popular with local families at weekends, who bring picnics or buy from the vans. Sainte-Anne's restaurants range from beach shacks to more polished seafood places, and the town is busy in the high season from December to April. Come for lunch, swim, and stay for the sunset.

Where to eat in Saint-François

Saint-François, at the eastern end of Grande-Terre, is a resort and fishing town around a marina and a working harbour. In the morning, fishermen sell their catch by the harbour, and the marina is lined with restaurants serving fish, langouste, lambi and Creole dishes. Saint-François is also the departure point for ferries to La Désirade and Marie-Galante, and the road beyond the town leads to Pointe des Châteaux, the rocky headland at the eastern tip of the island.

Saint-François has a mix of local restaurants, beach places and some of Guadeloupe's more upmarket dining, especially around the marina and the golf course. The beaches nearby have snack vans at weekends. For the best value in Saint-François, look for the plat du jour at lunch and fish straight from the harbour.

Where to eat in Deshaies

Deshaies is a fishing village on the north-west coast of Basse-Terre, set on a small bay with colourful boats and a waterfront of restaurants. It is known as the filming location of the British TV series Death in Paradise, and visitors come for the series and stay for the beach at Grande Anse, one of the most beautiful on the island, and for the botanical garden above the village. The restaurants on the Deshaies waterfront serve fish, ouassous, lambi and Creole plates, and Grande Anse has beach restaurants and snack bars.

The rest of the Basse-Terre coast is worth exploring for food too. South of Deshaies, Pointe-Noire is known for its cassava workshops making kassav and for coffee and cocoa, with small plantations and a cocoa museum open to visitors, and Bouillante is a diving centre with simple seafood restaurants. Inland, rivers and waterfalls are where ouassous come from. Basse-Terre's coast road is slow and winding, so plan lunch stops.

Where to eat on Les Saintes

Les Saintes are a small group of islands south of Basse-Terre, reached by ferry from Trois-Rivières or Pointe-à-Pitre. Most visitors go to Terre-de-Haut, the main island, with its pretty village of painted houses around a bay often listed among the most beautiful in the world. When the ferry arrives, women wait at the dock with baskets of tourment d'amour, the island's coconut jam tarts, in coconut, guava and banana flavours. Buy one straight away, and another on the way back.

The village of Terre-de-Haut has seafood restaurants and snack bars along its main street and around the bay, serving grilled fish, langouste, accras and Creole dishes, and the beaches have a few simple places. Les Saintes are fishing islands, so order the fish of the day. Many people visit on a day trip, so lunchtime is busy; stay overnight for a quieter evening meal.

Where to eat on Marie-Galante

Marie-Galante, a round, flat island south of Grande-Terre reached by ferry from Pointe-à-Pitre or Saint-François, is the most rural part of Guadeloupe. It is covered in sugar cane, dotted with old windmill towers, and ox carts still work in the fields. The island has three working rum distilleries, all open to visitors, and its white rums are famous for their strength. Marie-Galante's traditional dish is bébélé, tripe with dumplings and green bananas, and the island is also known for its sugar cane products, fresh fish and lobster.

The main towns are Grand-Bourg, with a small market and restaurants, Saint-Louis, the ferry port, and Capesterre, near some of the island's best beaches. Food on Marie-Galante is simple and local: Creole restaurants, beach snack bars and roadside stalls selling sugar cane juice and fruit. Hire a car or scooter, visit a distillery, and eat lunch by the beach.

Vegetarian, vegan and allergy tips

Guadeloupe's Creole cooking is built on fish, seafood, salt cod and meat, so vegetarians need to ask carefully. The French word is végétarien (végan or végétalien for vegan). Good options include vegetable accras (check they contain no cod), gratin de christophine, giraumon, breadfruit, dachine, rice and red beans, kassav with coconut, salads and tropical fruit, and a bokit can be ordered with egg and cheese or salad. Watch for hidden ingredients: red beans are often cooked with salted pork, and sauces may use fish or meat stock.

Shellfish, including shrimp, conch, crab and ouassous, appears in many dishes, and hot pepper is used everywhere, though often whole so it can be removed. Bokit dough usually contains wheat flour and is fried in shared oil, while kassav and other cassava dishes are wheat-free. Our guide to eating abroad with food allergies explains how to explain an allergy clearly when you do not speak the language.

Useful French and Creole phrases for ordering

Bonjour / Bonsoir "Good morning / Good evening". Always greet before you ask for anything

Bonjou, ka ou fè? "Hello, how are you?" in Guadeloupean Creole

Un bokit morue, s'il vous plaît "A salt cod bokit, please"

Quel est le plat du jour ? "What is the dish of the day?"

Pas trop pimenté, s'il vous plaît "Not too spicy, please"

Je suis allergique aux fruits de mer "I am allergic to seafood"

L'addition, s'il vous plaît "The bill, please"

Mèsi "Thank you" in Creole

How swap.menu helps you eat in Guadeloupe

Guadeloupe's menus are in French, with Creole names that even mainland French visitors have to ask about: bébélé, matété, chatrou, ouassous. Photograph the menu with swap.menu and every dish appears in your language with the original name beside it and a short explanation, so you know that colombo de cabri is goat curry, bébélé is a tripe and dumpling dish and a bokit is a fried bread sandwich. Every price is converted from euros to your home currency, and we flag langouste priced by weight and point out that service is already included.

Tap the dishes you want, add a note such as "no seafood" or "not too spicy, please", typed or spoken, and swap.menu translates your order into French. Show the waiter your phone, or let them scan the QR code and read your order on their own screen. You can try it right now on a sample menu with the free demo, or see travel pass prices.

Guadeloupe food FAQ