What is the national dish of Saint Kitts and Nevis?

Stewed saltfish with spicy plantains, coconut dumplings and seasoned breadfruit. The saltfish, dried salted cod, is soaked to draw out the salt, then flaked and stewed with onion, tomato, sweet pepper and thyme; the dumplings have grated coconut in the dough, and the breadfruit is boiled or roasted and seasoned. It is a home dish more than a restaurant one, so it is found at lunch counters and in restaurants that cook island food rather than on hotel menus.

A goat stew, eaten on both islands: goat meat simmered slowly in a thick, peppery broth seasoned with thyme, cloves and onion, sometimes with dumplings in the pot. Despite the name it is closer to a stew than a soup. It is served in a bowl, often with bread to soak up the broth, and it is the dish of the weekend stalls, village gatherings and festival days.

What do people drink besides rum?

Mauby, a bittersweet drink brewed from the bark of a tree with spices and sugar, is sold bottled and poured at lunch counters. Ginger beer is made at home with grated fresh ginger and is sharp enough to bite. At roadside stalls, green coconuts are cut open with a machete and drunk from the shell.

Food guide

What to Eat and Drink in Saint Kitts and Nevis, From Saltfish to Cane Spirit

The cooking of Saint Kitts and Nevis is island food from the sea and the garden plot: salted and fresh fish, goat and chicken, breadfruit, plantain, sweet potato and coconut, seasoned with thyme, onion and hot pepper. Most of what is cooked the island way is found outside the hotels — at a lunch counter in Basseterre, at a roadside stall at the weekend or at a grill on the beach. Rum and a clear spirit distilled from sugar cane belong to the table too, a trace of the cane estates that once covered the lower slopes of both islands.

Updated 2026-10-05

Johnny cakes, cook-up and the lunch counter

The day starts with johnny cakes, rounds of dough fried until puffed and golden, split and eaten with saltfish, cheese or butter. At midday the cook shops and lunch counters of Basseterre and Charlestown serve plates from the day's pots: stewed chicken or fish with rice and peas, and a side of boiled sweet potato, green banana, plantain or breadfruit. The one-pot dish of the islands is cook-up, the local name for pelau: rice cooked together with pigeon peas and chicken or salted meat, so that the grains take up the seasoning of the meat.

Goat water, black pudding and the weekend stalls

At the weekend, roadside cooks and village vendors set out their pots, and what they sell is the islanders' own food rather than the visitors'. Goat water is ladled into bowls; black pudding, a sausage of pig's blood and rice seasoned with herbs and hot pepper, is sold in slices; and sugar cake, grated coconut boiled with sugar until it sets in small slabs, is sold by the piece as the sweet. The stalls take cash, best carried in small notes.

Lobster, conch and the catch at the beach grills

On the beaches of Frigate Bay and the south-east peninsula on Saint Kitts, and along Pinney's Beach on Nevis, the beach bars put lobster and reef fish on the grill, served with rice, salad and hot pepper sauce on the side. The lobster is the clawless spiny lobster of Caribbean waters, split and grilled in its shell, and the fish is snapper or another catch from the reefs. Conch, the large sea snail of the shallow sandy seabed, is cut up and stewed in a seasoned sauce or fried as fritters.

Rum punch, the cane spirit and the island lager

Rum punch is the beach-bar drink: rum, lime juice, sugar syrup and fruit juice over ice, with a dash of bitters. The drink most particular to Saint Kitts is a clear cane spirit, sold under that name rather than as a rum and drunk over ice with a grapefruit soda. A lager brewed on Saint Kitts is the everyday beer. In the villages, rum is drunk in the rum shop, the small bar of the village street.

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