Guide

Traditional food of Guyana: 12 dishes to know

Traditional Guyanese food mixes Indian, African, Amerindian, Portuguese, Chinese and British cooking. Curry and roti, rice, coconut milk, ground provisions such as cassava, eddoes and sweet potato, and cassareep, a black syrup made from bitter cassava, are its foundations. The most emblematic dishes are pepperpot, cook-up rice, chicken curry with roti and metemgee.

Updated 2026-10-154 min read

What Guyanese food is built on

Guyana sits on the South American mainland but cooks like the English-speaking Caribbean, especially Trinidad and Tobago, and like neighbouring Suriname, which has a similar ethnic mix. Its food reflects that mix: Indian, African, Creole, Portuguese, Amerindian, Chinese and British influences, with dishes adapted to local taste through extra herbs and spices.

The Indian contribution is the largest. Indentured workers, many from eastern Uttar Pradesh, brought curry, dal, roti and fried snacks, and today almost any meat can be curried: chicken, goat, lamb, duck or seafood. From the Amerindian peoples comes cassareep, the boiled-down juice of bitter cassava, and with it pepperpot.

Ground provisions, simply called "provisions", are the daily starches: cassava, sweet potato and eddoes. Along the coast, fresh fish is central, especially gilbaka, butterfish, tilapia, catfish and hassa, and the crab soups of the Berbice coast, made with okra, recall Louisiana gumbo.

Other dishes trace back to India too: satwa, prasad and pera are among the Indo-Guyanese foods that came from eastern Uttar Pradesh, and the calendar is just as mixed: Diwali and Phagwah are public holidays alongside Easter and Christmas. Mashramani, the republic holiday inspired by Amerindian festivals, is the other big public celebration.

Main dishes

Pepperpot — Beef, oxtail or other tough meat stewed for hours in cassareep with cinnamon, cloves and wiri wiri peppers, a small hot chilli native to Guyana. Of Amerindian origin, it is the most often named national dish of Guyana and is eaten on Christmas morning with bread. See our pepperpot recipe.
Cook-up rice — Rice and black-eyed peas cooked in one pot with coconut milk, salted meat and chicken. It is the local version of Caribbean rice and peas and, while not the national dish, one of the most cooked meals in the country. Our cook-up rice recipe leaves the pot unstirred.
Metemgee — Cassava, eddoes, plantain and sweet potato simmered in coconut milk until it thickens into a rich gravy, topped with large steamed dumplings called duff. It is eaten with fried fish, salt fish or chicken; see our metemgee recipe.
Chicken curry and roti — Chicken seasoned with green herbs and cooked in curry powder until the sauce is thick, eaten with roti torn by hand to scoop it up. With pepperpot and cook-up rice, it is one of the three dishes counted as Guyana's national dishes.
Dhal and rice — Split peas cooked to a thin, spiced soup and poured over white rice, the Guyanese form of the Indian dal bhat. It is a basic daily meal, alongside kitchrie, rice and dal cooked together in one pot.
Chicken in the ruff — Fried rice topped with Chinese-style fried chicken, one of the take-out dishes of Guyana's Chinese restaurants. Lo mein and chow mein are the other staples of those menus in the larger towns.

Breads, snacks and Christmas food

Homemade bread is a village craft, a legacy of British rule, and so are the pastries sold in every bakery: cheese rolls, pine tarts (pineapple tarts) and patties. Drinks are mostly homemade too: lime wash, pine drink, mauby, sorrel, peanut punch and ginger beer, the Christmas drink. Christmas and Old Year's Night are the high point of the food year: preparation starts weeks, sometimes months, ahead, when the fruit for black cake goes into rum or wine and the ginger beer, mauby and sorrel are left to ferment. The breads, snacks and festive dishes to know:

Roti — Guyanese roti is soft and layered: a little oil, butter or margarine goes into each piece of dough before rolling, and it is clapped or beaten hot off the tawa. Dosti roti is the most common kind; dhalpuri, filled with ground split peas, and aloo roti, filled with potato, are the others. Ghee is kept for special occasions, especially among Hindus.
Bakes and saltfish — Small rounds of dough fried until puffed, made quickly in the morning and paired with stewed salt fish or eggs cooked with onion, tomato and pepper. Guyanese bakes are always fried, unlike some island versions baked in the oven.
Pholourie — Fried balls of ground split peas and flour spiced with garlic, turmeric or cumin, served with tamarind or mango chutney. They arrived with indentured workers from India and are now a standard Guyanese snack.
Cassava bread — A flatbread of grated cassava from the Amerindian tradition, baked on a flat griddle. It is the traditional partner of pepperpot, though on Christmas morning homemade plait bread usually takes its place.
Garlic pork — Pork pickled in a marinade of vinegar, garlic and chilli, then fried. It comes from carne de vinha d'alhos, the Christmas pork of Madeira, and arrived with Portuguese immigrants in the early 19th century. In Guyana it is still a Christmas dish, served alongside pepperpot.
Black cake — A dark fruit cake made from dried fruit soaked in rum or cherry brandy for weeks or even months, with burnt-sugar caramel. It is the cake of Christmas and weddings in Guyana.

Guyanese food and its neighbours

Guyana is the only English-speaking country in South America, and its table belongs to two worlds: the South American mainland, where cassava and cassareep come from, and the Caribbean islands it shares roti, curry and black cake with. Compare with the traditional food of Suriname, next door, and the traditional food of Trinidad and Tobago.

Cook Guyanese food at home

Pepperpot is the Christmas dish, cook-up rice the Saturday one-pot and metemgee the slow Sunday meal. All three have tested, step-by-step recipes in Copper, on our page about the food of Guyana.

The recipes

Questions people ask

What is the most popular food in Guyana?

Pepperpot, cook-up rice and chicken curry with roti are the three dishes counted as national dishes. Cook-up rice is one of the most cooked meals in the country.

What do Guyanese people eat for breakfast?

Bakes, quick fried breads made in the morning, with stewed salt fish or eggs are the classic. On Christmas morning, the breakfast is pepperpot with homemade bread, alongside garlic pork.

Is Guyanese food spicy?

It can be. Wiri wiri, a small hot pepper native to Guyana, goes into pepperpot and cook-up rice, and curries are well spiced, but heat varies from cook to cook.

What do Guyanese eat at Christmas?

Pepperpot, garlic pork, black cake, sponge cake and homemade bread, with ginger beer, sorrel and mauby to drink. Preparations start weeks ahead, when the fruit for black cake goes into rum or wine.

What is cassareep?

A thick black syrup made by boiling down the juice of bitter cassava with spices. It gives pepperpot its colour and bittersweet taste, and most of the cassareep on the market comes from Guyana.

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