Bahamas Travel Guide

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Cuisine

The Bahamas has a wealth of good restaurants and bars, from local beach-side food joints to upscale diners. Seafood and steaks are served with plantain, rice, fries or potatoes. Fresh fruit from the fertile Out Islands includes sweet pineapple, mango, breadfruit and papaya.

National specialties:
• Conch is on every menu, from creamy chowders and fritters to stews and salads. Order it ‘scorched’ for a ceviche-style dish served with lime juice, hot pepper, chopped tomato and onion, or ‘cracked’ for deep fried.
• Rock lobster (typically broiled, minced or used in salads).
• Land crabs (usually boiled or baked).
• Souse (a soup consisting purely of onions, water, lime juice, celery, peppers and meat).
• Guava duff (a dessert made with sieved guava pulp and served with hard sauce (a blend of butter, confectioners' sugar, vanilla, and rum)).

National drinks:
• The local liqueur is Nassau Royal, a rum served neat or in coffee.
• A refreshing alcoholic drink is coconut water, sweet milk and gin.
• Kalik is the beer of the Bahamas.
• Rum punch.

Legal drinking age: 18.

Tipping: Budget for a 15% gratuity as standard, but check the bill as some hotels and restaurants include a service charge. Tip porters B$1 per bag and allow 10-15% for taxi drivers.

Nightlife

Most hotels contain bars, lounges and nightclubs. Live music, beach parties and discos center on calypso and goombay bands with limbo dancing. Four casinos are spread across Cable Beach, Paradise Island and Grand Bahama (Freeport and Lucaya) with festivals and live entertainment organized locally year-round.