British Virgin Islands

🇯🇲Jamaica

Ackee and Saltfish

Boiled ackee — the soft yellow arils of the national fruit — sautéed with flaked salt cod, onion, tomato, scotch bonnet and thyme until it resembles scrambled egg.

🇻🇬British Virgin Islands

Anegada Lobster

Anegada is renowned throughout the Caribbean for its spiny lobster fishery. The clawless lobster tails are commonly split, seasoned, and grilled over coals until smoky and sweet.

🇦🇮Anguilla

Anguillian Callaloo Soup

Callaloo Soup

A creamy soup made from callaloo leaves, often with coconut milk, okra, pumpkin, hot red pepper, herbs, garlic, and onion; sometimes includes crab meat or salted cod; rich in iron; an Anguillian soup.

🇲🇫Saint Martin

Anguillian Coconut Tart

Coconut Tart

A pastry filled with grated coconut, sugar, and spices; a local bakery specialty in Anguilla, often served with vanilla ice cream; a classic island dessert. Across the islands this coconut-filled tart is baked as a bakery sweet, with local notes ranging from Anguillian spice to Sint Maarten and Cayman fillings.

🇦🇮Anguilla

Anguillian Johnny Cakes

Fry Cakes

Dense, fried or baked cornmeal biscuits; the bread of Anguilla; made with flour, cornmeal, baking powder, salt, sugar, oil, and water; served with everything from lobster to saltfish; can be baked in traditional coal ovens or fried

🇦🇮Anguilla

Anguillian Roadside BBQ

Beach Shack BBQ

Charcoal-grilled chicken, ribs, and pork from roadside stands and beach shacks; a budget-friendly staple, especially during Carnival and festivals; often served with johnny cakes, rice and peas, or grilled garlic bread

🇦🇬Antigua and Barbuda

Antiguan Sugar Cake

Sugar Cake

Chewy confection of grated coconut cooked down with sugar, often tinted pink and flavoured with ginger or nutmeg; a classic Antiguan sweet treat; the mixture is often divided into two batches, one coloured pink and the other left white, poured one over the other to form a pink and white cake; found at markets and schoolyards; the sugar cake of Antigua.

🇦🇬Antigua and Barbuda

Antiguan Sweet Dumpling

Ducana

Sweet dumpling of grated sweet potato and coconut, spiced with nutmeg and cinnamon, tied in a banana leaf and steamed; an Antiguan side dish and snack; often paired with saltfish; reflects the islands' skillful use of humble local ingredients; appearance similar to a tamale

🇦🇬Antigua and Barbuda

Antiguan Tamarind Balls

Tamarind Balls

Sticky sweet-and-sour balls of tamarind pulp rolled with sugar, sometimes with a pinch of hot pepper; a bite-sized Antiguan snack with a tangy kick; coated in granulated sugar; chewy, peppery, sweet, and sour; found at markets and schoolyards; the tamarind balls of Antigua.

🇦🇼Aruba

Aruban Cornmeal Pancake

Pan Bati

Pan bati is a soft, thin Aruban cornmeal pancake made with flour and sugar on a flat griddle, eaten sweet at breakfast or savory with soups and sauces.

🇦🇼Aruba

Aruban Fried Empanada

Pastechi

A traditional Aruban breakfast and snack: a deep-fried crescent pastry filled with cheese, chicken, beef, tuna, or vegetables, seasoned with onion, green pepper, celery, raisins, cumin, nutmeg, and hot pepper.

🇧🇸Bahamas

Bahamian Johnny Cake

Johnnycake

A dense, slightly sweet pan bread of flour, butter, sugar and milk, baked in a skillet and cut in wedges.

🇧🇸Bahamas

Bahamian Peas and Rice

Peas 'n' rice

Rice cooked with pigeon peas, salt pork, thyme, tomato paste and browning until the grains take a light brown colour.

🇧🇸Bahamas

Bahamian Rum Cake

Rum cake

A dense butter cake soaked repeatedly in dark rum syrup until it keeps for weeks without drying.

🇧🇧Barbados

Bajan Fish Cakes

Fish cakes

Salt cod flaked into a seasoned batter with herbs and hot pepper, dropped by the spoonful into hot oil and sold hot by the bag.

🇧🇧Barbados

Bajan Macaroni Pie

Macaroni pie

Macaroni baked with cheddar, mustard, onion and a whisked egg custard until it sets firm enough to be cut in squares and served as a side.

🇧🇧Barbados

Bajan Pepper Sauce

Scotch bonnets blended with mustard, turmeric, onion and vinegar into a thick yellow sauce that sits on every table on the island.

🇧🇧Barbados

Bajan Souse

Souse

Boiled pork cuts cooled and steeped in a pickle of lime juice, cucumber, onion, parsley and scotch bonnet, served cold and dripping.

🇦🇮Anguilla

Bushwacker

Anguillian Bushwacker

Created at the Ship's Store on St. Thomas in 1975, the Bushwacker is a frozen cocktail of rum and creamy coffee-and-chocolate liqueurs. BVI bars serve their own adopted versions.

🇻🇬British Virgin Islands

BVI Bullfoot Soup

Bullfoot Soup

Traditional Caribbean soup made with bull foot or cow heel meat, onions, garlic, carrots, corn, green bananas, yams, Scotch bonnet pepper, thyme, and dumplings; long cooking transforms tough meat into tender bites with thick, collagen-rich broth; a BVI heritage soup.

🇻🇬British Virgin Islands

BVI Corned Pork

Corned Pork

Salt-cured pork, a traditional dish that is increasingly rare and highly sought after at cultural food fairs in the British Virgin Islands; a distinctive BVI heritage dish.

🇻🇬British Virgin Islands

BVI Guavaberry Wine

Guavaberry Wine

Traditional Christmas beverage made from guavaberry fruit and rum; the fruit is harvested around the holidays to make this festive drink; a BVI holiday tradition. BVI guavaberry wine is a fermented local fruit drink, not a distilled spirit.

🇻🇬British Virgin Islands

BVI Pates

Pah-tehs

Savory fried pastries filled with seasoned ground beef, chicken, saltfish, conch, or vegetables; similar to empanadas; a popular street food and breakfast item in the British Virgin Islands

🇻🇬British Virgin Islands

BVI Peas Soup

Peas Soup

Hearty soup made with pigeon peas, salted pig tails, ham hocks, salted beef, or turkey necks, sweet potatoes, and cornmeal dumplings; a restorative meal and traditional BVI soup.

🇻🇬British Virgin Islands

BVI Stewed Whelks

Stewed Whelks

Sea snails (smaller than conch) stewed in a flavorful broth; a local delicacy found at specific locations and cultural food fairs in the British Virgin Islands; a distinctive BVI seafood specialty.

🇯🇲Jamaica

Callaloo

Amaranth leaves steamed down with onion, tomato, thyme and scotch bonnet, eaten at breakfast with dumplings or as a side.

🇹🇹Trinidad and Tobago

Carib

Pale lager brewed in Trinidad since 1950 and the default beer of Carnival and of every lime.

🇹🇹Trinidad and Tobago

Coconut Bake

Grated coconut worked into a bread dough and baked into a dense, faintly sweet flat loaf.

🇧🇸Bahamas

Conch Chowder

Conch simmered with tomato, potato, carrot, celery and thyme into a red soup finished with a splash of sherry pepper sauce.

🇧🇸Bahamas

Conch Fritters

Minced conch folded into a peppery batter with onion and sweet pepper and dropped in oil as golf-ball fritters.

🇧🇸Bahamas

Conch Salad

Raw conch knocked out of the shell and diced at the stall with onion, sweet pepper, tomato, lime and sour orange, then eaten from the cup within minutes.

🇦🇼Aruba

Cornmeal Polenta

Funchi

Funchi; a cornmeal polenta-like side dish; one of the three core ingredients of Aruban cuisine; served with nearly every stew; a legacy of indigenous Arawak corn cultivation; a gluten-free corn-based side; designed to balance strong stew flavors

🇧🇸Bahamas

Cracked Conch

Conch pounded flat with a mallet, dipped in seasoned batter and fried, served with peas and rice and a wedge of lime.

🇯🇲Jamaica

Curry Goat

Goat on the bone browned with Jamaican curry powder, scotch bonnet, pimento and thyme, then stewed until the meat falls off and the sauce thickens.

🇧🇲Bermuda

Dark 'n' Stormy

BVI Dark 'n' Stormy

A highball cocktail made with Gosling's Black Seal Rum and ginger beer (traditionally Barritt's) over ice, garnished with lime; trademarked by Gosling Brothers; invented in Bermuda after World War I

🇬🇾Guyana

Dhalpuri Roti

Dhalpuri

Flatbread stuffed with a dry, seasoned ground split-pea filling before rolling, so the pea layer is sealed inside.