Food

Tahiti is famous for its food, and throughout the islands there are excellent restaurants offering French, Italian, Polynesian, American, Chinese and Vietnamese cuisine.

The major hotels often offer two types of restaurants, simple or gourmet, and organize evenings around generous buffets with dance shows featuring the best troops.

Other options include bistro fare, and, in Papeete, sidewalk cafés and the 'Roulottes'. These mobile cafés offer good, inexpensive food from pizza and crepes to steak and chips.

There is plenty of delicious seafood, including clams, crayfish, shrimps and local ocean fish. Tropical fruits include pineapple, coconuts, mangoes, limes, papaya, oranges and grapefruit. Traditional Tahitian fare includes the national dish of poisson cru (raw fish marinated in lime juice and coconut milk), and the local pork is featured in many Tahitian dishes.

Meat and chicken is good, mostly imported from New Zealand. Moreover, sea-product-lovers will enjoy the great diversity of fish -from lagoon or deep-sea fishing- prepared in dozen different ways.

People who don't care for fish or are vegetarian will also be pleasantly surprised by the dishes available to them.

The restaurants on Bora Bora and Moorea are as legendary as the islands themselves. The hotels have restaurants that offer gourmet dinning and service, with a magical view of the lagoon. Traditional Polynesian evenings are often organized after dinner, when visitors are entertained by the most talented musicians and dancers on the island.

For specifics about restaurants in each island please consult each island page in the section "Best of..."

The cost of a meals in the good restaurants is comparable to what you'd pay in a big city, about $80 per person, plus wine.

Drinks

The national drink of Tahiti is beer, the now famous Hinano.  But the choice of alcohols is endless and tropical cocktails are excellent as they are made with the local fruits.

Wines are widely available, both in supermarkets and restaurants.  Good French wines can be found at reasonable prices.

Cheers!