British Virgin Islands: Food and the National Dish

A sailing territory's everyday table

The British Virgin Islands are best known internationally as a yachting and sailing destination, and the food here follows the same pattern found across the English-speaking Caribbean: fish and other seafood caught close to shore, cornmeal and rice as the everyday starch, and a British colonial layer over an African and West Indian foundation. What sets the BVI apart is less the food itself than two specific contributions to Caribbean drinking culture that came directly from these small islands.

The signature dish: fish and fungi

Fish and fungi is the dish most associated with the BVI. Fungi (sometimes written funghi) is a firm cornmeal-and-okra paste, part of the same wider Caribbean family as Antigua's fungee and Barbados's cou-cou, served alongside fish that has been stewed or fried, usually seasoned simply with onion, tomato and local herbs. As with similar dishes across the region, it isn't unique to the BVI alone, but it is the dish locals and visiting food writers point to first when asked what to eat here.

Dishes to know

Five more to recognise across the territory:

• Callaloo soup — a soup of leafy greens (often dasheen or taro leaf) with

crab and okra, found with local variations right across the Caribbean.

• Conch — fritters, chowder or salad, from the large marine snail fished

around the islands' reefs.

• Roti — a flatbread wrapped around curried meat or vegetables, reflecting

the Indo-Caribbean influence found throughout the wider region.

• Johnnycake and festival — fried cornmeal bread and a lightly sweet fried

dumpling, both standard sides to fried fish.

• Whelks — small sea snails, prepared much like conch and popular as a

local snack.

Rum with a Royal Navy history

The Painkiller — dark rum, pineapple and orange juice, and cream of coconut, topped with grated nutmeg — was invented at the Soggy Dollar Bar on White Bay, Jost Van Dyke, a beach bar with no dock, where patrons swim ashore and pay for their drinks with genuinely wet, "soggy" money. The cocktail has since become one of the most widely copied drinks in the Caribbean, though the original is still made at the bar where it started.

Eating as a traveller

Seafood is the highlight and usually landed nearby. Vegetarians will find the options more limited outside resort restaurants, since fungi's usual partner is fish and most everyday dishes lean on meat or seafood stock. Tap water is generally safe on the main islands. Because the territory relies heavily on imported goods, eating out — especially at marinas and resorts catering to the yachting crowd — tends to be more expensive than on some neighbouring islands.

What to take from the table

Fish and fungi is the dish to try, but a Painkiller at the Soggy Dollar Bar, swum ashore to reach it, is the experience most people actually remember from the British Virgin Islands.