Traditional food of Mauritius: 14 dishes to know

Mauritian food blends Indian, Creole, Chinese and French cooking on a base of rice, flatbread, seafood and chilli. Curries rarely use coconut milk and are scented with thyme and curry leaves, and street stalls sell flatbreads, fritters and noodles. The most emblematic dishes are dholl puri, rougaille, briani and fish vindaye.

Updated 2026-10-124 min read

What Mauritian food is built on

Mauritian cuisine grew out of the communities that settled the island: French settlers, enslaved Africans, Indian indentured labourers and, in the 19th century, Chinese migrants. Each adapted the others' food, so some dishes are eaten by everyone while others stay linked to Indo-Mauritian, Creole, Sino-Mauritian or Franco-Mauritian kitchens. Indians, the largest group, are credited with making flour and rice the island's staples.

Rice is eaten boiled, fried or cooked into one-pot dishes. Tomatoes, onions, okra, eggplant, chayote (*chou chou*), garlic and chillies are the everyday vegetables, and seafood includes salted fish, smoked marlin, octopus, prawns and crayfish (*camarons*). Meals come with *achard* (pickled vegetables), *satini* (chutneys) and *mazavarou*, a hot chilli paste.

Street food and flatbreads

• Dholl puri — A thin flatbread filled with yellow split peas ground to a dry powder, cooked on a flat *tawa*. It is sold at stalls all over the island, usually in a pair, with bean curry, rougaille, achard and chutney. Travel writers say that if Mauritius had a national dish, this would probably be it, and name Dewa, in Rose-Hill, as the place for the best ones.
• Farata — A flatbread close to the Indian paratha, buttery and soft, eaten with curry. It is sold at street stalls and in Mauritian and Indian restaurants, and is listed by French-language references among the national dishes.
• Gato piment — "Chilli cakes": fritters of split peas with chilli, a Mauritian variant of the Indian vada. They are part of the *gajaks*, the fried snacks sold from glass boxes on motorbikes and stalls near markets and beaches.
• Gato patate — Sweet potato cakes: a dough of boiled sweet potato, flour and sugar is cut into circles, filled with grated coconut, sugar and sometimes cardamom, folded into crescents and deep-fried. They are a teatime snack, eaten hot or cold.

Sino-Mauritian dishes

• Mine frit — Fried noodles with soy sauce, topped with spring onions and chilli, credited to the Chinese community. It is a popular street dish, best eaten in Port Louis's Chinatown, and Sino-Mauritians eat fried noodles at birthdays. A bowl of cold *mousse noir* is the usual way to cool down afterwards.
• Boulettes — Dumplings of fish, prawn or chayote, the chayote ones called *niouk yen*, plus meatballs, steamed and served in a broth with plenty of chilli. They are sold at street stalls.
• Bol renversé — "Upside-down bowl": rice and vegetables at the base, a layer of meat or shrimp and a fried egg on top, turned out of a bowl onto the plate. It is a local take on a Chinese dish.

Curries, rice and Creole stews

• Cari — Mauritian curry is built on garlic, onion, fresh curry leaves and turmeric, and rarely contains coconut milk; it often uses thyme. It is made with chicken, goat, fish, duck or octopus, and served with rice or farata, lentils, chutneys and achard. At Indian weddings, *sept-cari*, seven curries served together like a thali, is the traditional spread.
• Briani — Mauritian biryani, also called *briye*: rice cooked with chicken or meat, vegetables and spices, listed among the island's national dishes. Its signature is fried potatoes cooked inside the marinated meat under parboiled rice, in a pot sealed so no steam escapes.
• Vindaye — Fish, or blanched octopus, fried and then coated in a mixture of turmeric, mustard seeds, ginger, garlic and chillies, sharpened with vinegar. It is a Mauritian variant of vindaloo, served with rice, lentils, pickles and chutney.
• Achard and satini — The sides that come with almost every meal: *achard*, vegetables pickled with mustard, and *satini*, chutneys such as fresh coriander (*satini cotomili*), tomato or chilli-coconut. Coconut chutney is the cooling partner of a curry laced with mazavarou.
• Rougaille — A thick tomato stew with onion, garlic, ginger, chilli, thyme and curry leaves, simmered with meat, fish or, most often, smoked Creole sausages. The plain version, *rougaille touni* ("naked"), is served as a side.

Sweets and drinks

• Alouda — A sweet cold drink of milk, *tukmaria* (basil seeds) and coloured agar-agar jelly, often flavoured with almond or vanilla. It is similar to falooda, and the Port Louis market is the place locals recommend for it.
• Napolitaine — Two sablé biscuits sandwiched with jam and coated in icing. Despite the French name, the pastry originated in Mauritius.

Four kitchens on one island

Mauritius is better read by community than by region. Indo-Mauritian cooking brought dal, flatbreads, briani and sweets such as gulab jamun and ladoo. Creole cooking is built on seafood, pulses, corn and tapioca: rougaille, vindaye, *poudine maïs* (corn pudding) and *poudine manioc*. Sino-Mauritian food gave noodles, fried rice, dim sum and *mousse noir*, a cold drink of grass jelly. Franco-Mauritian tables kept daube, civet, venison from Javan deer, baguettes and tarts.

Tea is drunk daily, often black and flavoured with vanilla, at about a kilo per person a year; the liking for afternoon tea is a British influence. Phoenix is the national beer, and rum from sugar cane is distilled on the island.

Cook Mauritian food at home

Dholl puri is the dish most often named as the national dish of Mauritius. Copper has full recipes for dholl puri, rougaille and Mauritian biryani, with ingredients and step-by-step methods, on our page about the food of Mauritius, alongside other East African recipes.

Seychelles shares the Creole base of rice, curry and rougaille but leans more on fish and coconut. Compare with the traditional food of Seychelles.

The recipes

• Biryani🇲🇺 Mauritius · 6 hours
• Dholl puri🇲🇺 Mauritius · 14 hours and 30 minutes
• Rougaille🇲🇺 Mauritius · 55 minutes

Questions people ask

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Sources

1. Mauritian cuisine — Wikipedia
2. Cuisine mauricienne — Wikipédia (fr)
3. 25 of the best things to eat and drink in Mauritius — Getaway
4. Dholl puri — SBS Food

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