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Traditional food of Bermuda: 12 dishes to know

Traditional Bermudian food blends British and Portuguese cooking with Caribbean and West African influences, and it is built on local fish such as wahoo and rockfish, salt cod, potatoes and black rum. The most emblematic dishes are Bermuda fish chowder, the Sunday codfish breakfast, the fish sandwich on raisin bread and codfish cakes, with the rum swizzle as the national drink.

Updated 2026-10-124 min read

What Bermudian food is built on

Bermuda is a small, isolated island in the Atlantic, about 650 miles from Cape Hatteras in North Carolina, and most of the ingredients in its kitchens have always been imported. What the island does supply is fish. Wahoo, rockfish (the local name for black grouper), snapper, tuna and mahi mahi go into everything from chowder to sandwiches, and spiny lobster fills menus from September to March.

The cooking reflects who settled the island. English colonists arrived after the wreck of the Sea Venture in 1609 and brought British habits, from hot cross buns to afternoon tea. Portuguese settlers made salt cod a staple and brought sweet bread rolls and pork dishes. African, Caribbean and Native American roots add peas and rice, jerk meats and hot peppers. The result is a short list of dishes that are found nowhere else in quite the same form.

Two Bermudian products turn up again and again: Gosling's Black Seal Rum, made on the island since the early nineteenth century, and Outerbridge's Original Sherry Peppers, a hot pepper sauce in sherry that was first bottled in 1964 from a recipe centuries older.

Fish chowder, codfish and fish cakes

Bermuda fish chowder — A thin, dark soup of fish stock, white fish, tomato, onion, celery, carrot and potato, with no milk or cream, finished at the table with black rum and sherry peppers sauce. It is the national dish of Bermuda and is eaten at home as well as in restaurants; our fish chowder recipe builds it on a stock of fish heads and bones.
Codfish breakfast — The Sunday morning plate: boiled or steamed salt cod with boiled potatoes, onions, sliced bananas, a hard-boiled egg and avocado, topped with a tomato sauce or a butter and onion sauce, or simply with olive oil. The tomato and onion version shows the Portuguese side of Bermudian cooking, and some restaurants serve the plate as a weekend brunch.
Codfish cakes — Salt cod mashed with cooked potato, thyme and parsley, shaped into patties and fried until crisp. They are eaten all year on a bun, but on Good Friday they are served on hot cross buns, the sweet spiced bun of Easter, during the kite-flying season.

Sandwiches, seafood and sides

Bermuda fish sandwich — Deep-fried fish fillet with tartar sauce on raisin bread, ordered with "the works": lettuce, tomato, grilled Bermuda onions, cheese, hot sauce and coleslaw. It is a menu staple from roadside takeaways to bistros; our fish sandwich recipe gives wahoo a double flour coat.
Rockfish Bermuda style — Black grouper fillets pan-fried and served with grilled bananas and toasted almonds in a lemon butter sauce. Bananas appear across Bermudian cooking, as fritters, in crumbles and baked in rum and brown sugar.
Shark hash — Minced shark meat sautéed with spices and served on toast as an appetiser. It is a speciality of the East End, where seafood counters sell it alongside fried and marinated mussels.
Mussel pie — Shelled mussels baked with potatoes and onions, seasoned with thyme, parsley and curry. It is one of the common dishes of Bermudian home cooking.
Hoppin' John — Black-eyed peas and rice cooked with bacon, onion and thyme, the everyday side next to fried fish or grilled chicken; peas and rice in its several versions is on menus all over the island. See our Hoppin' John recipe.

Holiday dishes and desserts

Cassava pie — The Christmas dinner speciality: a sweet crust of grated cassava, butter, eggs, salt and sugar baked around a filling of chicken, once also beef or pork. It is said to date from 1612, every family keeps its own recipe, and restaurants now serve it as a side dish all year.
Sweet potato pudding — A baked pudding of sweet potato flavoured with cinnamon, cloves and lemon or orange juice, especially popular on Guy Fawkes Night in November.

Bermuda's two national drinks

Rum swizzle — Rum mixed with fruit juices, usually lime, orange and pineapple, and a sweetener such as falernum or grenadine, shaken or stirred with ice. Often called Bermuda's national drink, it is traditionally stirred with a three-pronged swizzle stick cut from an allspice bush, and the Swizzle Inn in Bailey's Bay calls itself its home.
Dark 'n' Stormy — Dark rum and ginger beer over ice with a slice of lime. Gosling Brothers says it was invented in Bermuda just after the First World War, originally with Gosling's Black Seal Rum and Barritt's ginger beer, a soft drink made on the island since 1874.

Bermudian food and its neighbours

Bermuda sits between continents, and so does its food. Local farms add their own touch: English onions arrived around 1616 and became known abroad as Bermuda onions, and island fruit salads use loquats, papaya, Suriname cherries and locally grown strawberries. The British roots show in the traditional food of the United Kingdom, from hot cross buns to tea, while the island's place in North American cooking explains its links with the American South, from Hoppin' John to chowder. All three Copper recipes, chowder, fish sandwich and Hoppin' John, are on our page about the food of Bermuda, with ingredients and step-by-step methods.

The recipes

Questions people ask

What is the most popular food in Bermuda?

Bermuda fish chowder is the dish most often called the national dish, and the fish sandwich on raisin bread is a menu staple island-wide. The codfish breakfast is the traditional Sunday meal.

What do Bermudians eat for breakfast?

The traditional Sunday breakfast is salt cod with boiled potatoes, onions, bananas, a hard-boiled egg and avocado, topped with tomato sauce or butter and onion sauce.

Is Bermudian food spicy?

Not especially. The heat usually comes from condiments: sherry peppers sauce, made from very hot bird peppers in sherry, goes into fish chowder, and hot sauce is a standard topping on fish sandwiches.

What do Bermudians eat at Easter?

On Good Friday Bermudians eat codfish cakes on hot cross buns, often while flying kites.

What is Bermuda's national drink?

The rum swizzle is usually called Bermuda's national drink, and the Dark 'n' Stormy, black rum with ginger beer, is the other island classic.

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