Prices are for a main course at dinner.

First-class restaurants and hotel dining rooms serve sophisticated cuisine that rivals cuisine served in the world's best restaurants. Most menus include seafood: dorado (also known as dolphinfish or mahimahi), kingfish, snapper, and flying fish prepared every way imaginable. Shellfish, steak, local black-belly lamb, and fresh fruits and vegetables are plentiful.

Local specialty dishes include buljol (a cold salad of pickled codfish, tomatoes, onions, sweet peppers, and celery) and conkies (cornmeal, coconut, pumpkin, raisins, sweet potatoes, and spices, mixed together, wrapped in a banana leaf, and steamed). Cou-cou, often served with steamed flying fish, is a mixture of cornmeal and okra topped with a spicy creole sauce made from tomatoes, onions, and sweet peppers. Bajan-style pepper-pot is a hearty stew of oxtail, beef chunks, and "any other meat" in a rich, spicy gravy and simmered overnight.

For lunch, restaurants often offer a traditional Bajan buffet of fried fish, baked chicken, salads, and a selection of local roots and vegetables. Be cautious with the West Indian condiments; like the sun, they're hotter than you think. Typical Bajan drinks, besides Banks beer and Mount Gay rum, are falernum (a liqueur concocted of rum, sugar, lime juice, and almond essence) and mauby (a nonalcoholic drink made by boiling bitter bark and spices, straining the mixture, and sweetening it). You're sure to enjoy the fresh fruit punch, with or without the rum.