Food
Craving Creole: The Dish On Seychellois Cuisine
Beyond the powder-white beaches and elite resorts, the pristine island nation of the Seychelles harbours a delicious secret – as Chris Dwyer discovers
There’s perhaps no one better placed to explain what makes Seychellois cuisine so unique than 88-year-old Micheline Georges. The remarkable matriarch at Le Jardin du Roi, a restaurant crowning a 35ha spice garden and park that overlooks the Indian Ocean, still works seven days a week, as she has done for more than seven decades.
The property, originally dating from 1779, has been in her family for five generations. Opposite the open-air dining room, an old Creole house – ‘Creole’ is how locals describe themselves, the language, culture and food of the Seychelles – serves as a museum, but it’s the bucolic garden surrounding it which best explains how the inhabitants of this 115-island archipelago are so blessed when it comes to native produce. Mango, guava, coffee, breadfruit, bananas, vanilla, starfruit and coconut are just some of the ingredients waiting to be plucked and enjoyed alongside spices like cinnamon, chilis, nutmeg, allspice, black pepper, clove, turmeric and lemongrass.
Madame Georges explains that the cuisine of the Seychelles is a fusion of influences, shaped by the islands’ history and enviable location. This Indian Ocean pearl offers dramatic jungle-clad mountains and picture-perfect white-sand beaches lined with palm trees, a setting so idyllic that it has become a byword for tropical luxury.
Over the centuries, African, French, Indian, Chinese and British peoples imported their own culinary traditions and influences. French techniques, especially, are seen in sauces and daubes, a type of stew. Indian migrants introduced their spices and curries, lentils and chutneys, while African traditions are still seen in root vegetables and open-flame cooking. The result is the unique local Creole cuisine served at Le Jardin du Roi and across the country.
From the lunch menu served under whirring fans, we start with bouillon blan – the Creole name for a fish broth featuring prawns and rice that is delicately enhanced with fragrant curry leaf, lime leaf and lemongrass. Madame Georges explains that the broth is made using fish heads and cheeks for maximum flavour.
Then comes chicken in ginger sauce served with side dishes of dahl-like lentils and green banana cooked in coconut milk until squidgy – still one of her favourites, after more than 80 years: “It’s delicious, but the season is about to finish – we made the most of them. Just cooked with coconut milk, a touch of sugar and a dash of salt.”
Like much of the food in the Seychelles, it’s modest, hyper-local and based on the absolute freshest ingredients.
Another way to immerse oneself in the Seychellois food landscape is with a market visit, especially if it’s at the wonderfully named Sir Selwyn Selwyn-Clarke Market (though often simply referred to as the Victoria Market) in the capital, Victoria. Distinctly maritime fragrances emanate from the multiple fish stalls where cheeky seagulls check out freshly caught yellowfin and skipjack tuna, red snapper, grouper, swordfish and kingfish.
Such peerless seafood explains why another Creole favourite is pwason griye or grilled fish, usually marinated with garlic, ginger, chilli and lime before being cooked over flames. Almost every restaurant serves it in some form, while roadside dining vans are a popular – and great value – way to sample it, as well as more examples of Creole cuisine.
Some 250 kilometres from Mahé, the country’s largest island, lies the remote, pristine Desroches, boasting 14 kilometres of sublime white-powder beaches and playing host to the Four Seasons Resort Seychelles at Desroches Island. When not surfing world-class breaks, diving and snorkelling vibrant reefs, or hand-feeding 175-year-old giant tortoises, guests here can partake in fascinating cultural experiences and learning.
Nowhere is that clearer than in a Creole cookery lesson with young local chef Nahim Agricole. He leads us through coconut plantations to the resort’s sprawling garden that would make any chef green with envy. Here we pick eggplant, green chilli peppers, leeks and tomatoes, all of which are to end up in a vegetable curry. Other stellar produce, such as bananas, pineapples, lemongrass and papaya, ensures that the resort’s farm-to-table culinary ethos remains genuine.
That’s clear back at one of the resort’s restaurants, where Nahim demonstrates how his Creole chicken curry features the fiery kick of chilli balanced by the creamy sweetness of coconut milk, itself adding depth of flavour to base notes including turmeric, coriander, bay leaves, garlic, ginger, cinnamon and Creole curry powder. Squeezes of fresh lime juice form another layer of refreshing sharpness atop this fragrant bowl that celebrates the tiny island’s bounty to delicious effect.
It again reflects the Seychelles’ rich food tapestry, one woven from diverse cultural influences and the country’s abundant natural offerings, where unique terroir and spice come together on every tropical plate.
[All images courtesy of Chris Dwyer]
[Header image: Melanie Maya/Getty Images]
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