French Polynesian Cuisine And What To Expect

French Polynesian cuisine is pretty much what you would expect from the typical island-life: freshly caught fish, juicy fruit plucked right from the trees and the sweetest coconuts cut open with a single well-directed hit.

But French Polynesian cuisine is also a mix of different influences from foreign countries, the main ones being French and Chinese; Kiwi and Australian elements make their apparition as well.

While fruit is abundant, vegetables are not. That is because the constantly warm climate doesn't allow 'cold-blooded' vegetables to grow well.

There is a big cost difference when it comes to eating: with the locals at home or filling up on snacks at one of the typical 'roulottes' is a bargain. However, when eating at a proper restaurant, and especially in touristy areas, the prices skyrocket.

In general, be it in people's homes, from a food truck or in a restaurant, we never didn't like what we had. 

Without further ado, here's our little guide on French Polynesian food that will tickle your taste buds.

Too hungry to read this now?

Pin it for later!

DISCLAIMER: This blog post contains affiliate links, which means we earn a tiny commission every time you book through one of our links at no additional cost for you 

Can't Wait To Get To French Polynesia?

French Polynesian cuisine: the main ingredients

Fish and fishing

Fishing is one of the main economic activities in French Polynesia. Which doesn't come as a surprise, knowing that French Polynesia is a collective of 118 islands with their respective lagoons. The methods they use are mostly line- or harpoon-fishing, not so much by using nets.

Both types of fishing have been around for ages, practised by their forefathers, and even though the tools got modernised at some point, the technique is still the same and involves holding their breath for quite some time and developing quick reactions.

When we stayed on the atoll Fakarava during our French Polynesia holiday, the local fishermen, who were responsible for literally catching our food at Tetamanu Village, explained that hunting for big tuna or swordfish can be really dangerous in these shark-infested waters.

Sharks never attack without a reason (thanks, Mr. Spielberg, for totally ruining their image!) but you can't blame them if you harpoon their prey right before their noses, right? Of course they will smell the blood and try to catch the injured fish. The fisherman or -woman has to be very fast in either getting the fish out of the water or putting it inside a sealed metal box so that the blood scent doesn't get out too quickly.

It's an impressive experience to watch these free-divers holding their breath for several minutes at a time while getting close to their pray in the blue depth of the lagoon. It's not suited for beginners.

Line-fishing, on the other hand, is a popular activity that pensions offer their guests, at a cost of course. People say it's a pretty cool feeling to be able to have a taste of self-caught food. Makes you feel powerful.

Main types of fish

Enormous swordfish, red and white tuna are hunted in competitions but also for daily food. The bigger the fish, the better for the community, as one of our hosts explained: the fish gets divided in equal parts and distributed to poorer community members. Even the ones they catch to serve at dinner for the tourists.

The wahoo, also called tazard in French Polynesia, is fished on the line and represents a challenge for fishers because of his speed and aggressive movements. 

Then there are the smaller lagoon fish amongst which the very popular parrotfish - I tried that on Bora Bora and it was a very soft white fish. I did feel bad, though, once I knew how cute they look in the wild...

Other lagoon fish you will most likely find very often on French Polynesian menus are the bright red squirrel- and the jackfish. 

Bénitier or tridacna clams (also called pahua in Tahitian) are a very popular dish, marinated in coconut milk. Honestly, the taste is great but the texture is something you will have to get used to first. It's also weird seeing them alive and breathing in their bright shiny colours while snorkelling and then eating them later...

Seafood-dishes

I think I've never eaten this much raw fish in a short period of time like during these four weeks in French Polynesia. That is their main specialty, the poisson cru. The freshly caught fish is immediately cut into thin slices like a sashimi and then marinated in coconut milk with lemon juice, little onions and garlic, with or without tomatoes.

Swordfish is also often grilled like a steak and here comes the French influence: they love pouring buttery Béchamel-sauce over it. And it's delicious. Especially on Maupiti island.

Mahi-mahi, badoo and the lagoon fish occasionally get steamed with banana leaves during their traditional 'Tahitian oven' (read below) but also come poached or fried.

You will also often find pretty colourful ones like the parrotfish in a panko-crust with butter sauce like we tried on Bora Bora.

Some restaurants have locally farmed freshwater-shrimps (crevettes or chevrettes), usually served as a curry with coconut-milk and the huge coconut crab (crabe de cocotier) that comes in bright blue and red colours is considered a delicacy - and an aphrodisiac.

Meat and poultry

New-Zealand and Australia provide quality lamb and beef at a reasonable price - restaurants often serve this in the form of steaks, burgers or skewers. Even the American corned beef can be found in every bigger commercial surface and Polynesians are apparently very fond of it.

Just as I already experienced in the Kingdom of Tonga, Polynesians love putting suckling pig as the main ingredient when it comes to celebratory meals during the tamara'a, cooked inside the ahima'a (more on that below). 

Other than these meats, there's poultry on every menu, mostly chicken. But here's the thing with that: while chicken and roosters - lots of them - run around freely on every island, the ones you'll find on your plate are always imported. They travel by ship as a frozen package, arriving predominantly from the US. 

Why is that? We asked around but the only answer we got was that it's just easier when the chicken is already plucked and ready to cook. That doesn't explain why it's the same with eggs, though. These are also a rarity because they have to be brought by ship from Tahiti. Despite hundreds of hens jumping and clucking around in every village.

Feel free to contact us or comment below if you know more about this mysterious phenomenon.

Fruit and veggies

Naturally growing fruits

Mangoes, avocados, pineapple and coconuts. Those are the main fruit-types naturally growing in French Polynesia. Depending on the season, you can pluck them right off the trees on nearly every island. Go hiking on Maupiti and you won't need to take a snack as the mangoes grow wildly all along the trails.

Lime and watermelon are also very present and the Southeast Asian people imported the 'rambutan', a sort of bigger lychee, that is often sold on little stalls along the roads.

Vegetables and the import issue

The uru, these big balls of breadfruit growing on trees, and the taro root (the fafa, the taro leaves, are popular as well) are part of the main ingredients of every traditional dish. Very starchy, they kind of replace the potato and are used in the same way: cut in wedges, as fries, mashed, simply cooked and covered in sauce, or in case of the fafa, like spinach.

And that's about it for home-grown vegetables. Truth is, the mild climate is obviously very good for fruit (and the people) but not so much for veggies. 

Funny story: we arrived on Fakarava by plane and had a 2h-drive from the airport to the accommodation. All of a sudden, the driver stopped the car and had to make a u-turn because he "forgot the box of salad". The salad crops actually travelled by plane from Tahiti to Fakarava. And they're not even grown on Tahiti either but are usually imported from the US or come from the only archipelago having green veggies growing thanks to slightly colder temperatures: the 'Marquesas Islands'.

Vegetarians/vegans

...will struggle a bit. Not so much on Tahiti because the modern cities did adapt to more and more animal-cruelty-free menus but on the other archipelagos, they aren't there yet.

Polynesians will certainly try to accommodate your needs as a vegetarian or vegan but they don't always know how and you will end up with pieces of plain uru and avocado on a plate. They are not used to replacing their main protein source, i.e. fish, by plant-based alternatives. 

French Polynesian food specialties

Tamara'a and ahima'a or Tahitian oven ('four tahitien')

The tamara'a, a traditional French Polynesian feast, usually involes the ahima'a or Tahitian oven: a hole dug in the sand, layered with hot coals and lava stones with  banana leaves on top. Typical Polynesian ingredients such as pork, fish, uru and taro but also plantain bananas (fei) and sweet potato (umara), often mixed with coconut milk get put inside in racks. The whole lot is covered by more banana leaves and their juices evaporating through the heat cook and steam the food inside the stove.

Getting the cooking pit to the right temperature takes about one hour and the whole cooking process four to six hours. The result is a mouth-watering meal full of intense flavours.

While this used to be organised for family gatherings on Sundays, a lot of islands adapted the feast to visitors, having tourists pay to assist the event. Totally understandable but because of dozens of foreigners attending at the same time we did (and all of them French), it felt a bit like a holiday camp.

Nevertheless, the food was delicious and it should be included in your Polynesian experience because it is still a part of their fascinating heritage.

The tamara'a we had on Maupiti's reef-island had said pork, chicken, swordfish-sashimi, uru and taro stew, plantain, the bénitier clam and a softer version of the fafaru: raw tuna slices get macerated in a mixture of seawater with crushed shrimps that has been left under the sun for a few days. That juice has a very ranch smell of rotten fish but it is supposed to taste very differently. In our case, the marinade was freshly made so the smell wasn't that strong. It is served with fermented coconut milk called mitihue.

If you are lucky enough to visit the Marquesas Islands, they are famous for the popoi, a heavy but creamy dough resembling cheese made from the uru served hot and best preserved in a hole in the ground.

Polynesian desserts

We had the opportunity of not only tasting the po'e but also making it ourselves: also called poke in other parts of Polynesia such as Hawaï, the po'e (= 'to mix/knead') is made from cooked and mashed bananas with arrowroot flour (or any other starchy flour) and locally grown vanilla. The mixture is baked in the oven and the result is a jelly-like dish, cut into pieces and served with coconut milk or cream.

At the Tahitian oven event, we had a variation with squash, but the one we made was the 'original' banana-po'e at our pension. We even grated and squeezed our coconuts ourselves for the freshest milk ever. 

In restaurants and bakeries, the French left their mark and you will find the sweetest pastries in every bigger town. But then again, embellished with coconut and local fruit such as the firifiri (coconut-beignets).

Foreign influences

As I already mentioned a few times, French Polynesia is ... well, French: France still has the sovereignty over the islands-collective. Hence, lots of influences from the French cuisine with often béchamel-sauce in lieu of coconut milk, drizzled over traditional lagoon fish. That French touch is also very alive inside the bakeries with sweet pastries such as buttery croissants or deep-fried beignets.

During the 19th century, there had been a wave of Chinese workers coming to French Polynesia looking for work on the cotton plantations. Naturally, they imported their food-traditions as well and lots of Chinese restaurants can be found especially on Tahiti. Finding chao mein (fried noodles) in variations with local ingredients is not hard at all.

In the meat section, we already talked about this: lamb and beef imported from 'neighbours' Australia and New Zealand is very common and very well prepared in local restaurants by adding uru-stew or taro leaves resembling spinach.

Globalisation makes for restaurants serving Italian food such as pasta and pizza being quite popular as well. And the fast-food chains didn't stay away from Tahiti either.

What to drink in French Polynesia

Alcoholic beverages in French Polynesia

While they do serve typically honeymoon-destination-cocktails at every corner such as Caipirinhas, Mai Tai and Margaritas, that's actually not very Polynesian. The Mai Tai, even though having a Tahitian name, was invented in the US ...

Anyhow, the main consumed alcoholic beverage is the pride of the islands, the Hinano beer. You will most likely see its signature flower-girl pretty much everywhere.

Then there is the beverage that gets exported to the whole wide world (can't remember any destination I visited where they didn't have it...) but which I don't consider being a proper beer (sorry, Dutch readers): the Heineken. 

There is one single micro-brewery in French Polynesia, close to the ferry-port in Papeete that we'd suggest checking out. They have a selection of locally brewed and also imported quality craft-beers and serve it with very yummy food: les 3 brasseurs.

Non-alcoholic beverages in French Polynesia

Freshly plucked coconuts, obviously. Make a small hole, put a straw in it and enjoy the sweetest coconut water (pape haari).

Excellent fruit juices (pineapple, mango, papaya, grapefruit, banana, watermelon) are served everywhere as well, though quite expensive when freshly squeezed. They do have one major local brand with boxed fruit juices, the Rotui. A lot cheaper and actually not bad at all.

Polynesians also love to welcome you with a homemade citronnade, a kind of lemonade made from fresh lemons and grapefruit.

Of course, coffee is also present to accompany the croissants and pastries but the best ones are near tourist-hotspots. Further away, it will most likely be instant coffee.

Where to eat 'on a budget' in French Polynesia?

Snack-bars are quite common on the bigger islands, serving little dishes like sandwiches on baguettes at a reasonable cost.

But the best budget-friendly option for guaranteed quality food remains the roulotte.

Roulottes are little vans on wheels serving quality food in the streets. They do serve the popular stuff like the poisson cru, but also fish tacos and burgers, brochettes (skewers), crevettes, chow mein and steak-frites (steak with fries - no, not saying 'French' fries).

Got hungry?

Read also | Food in Barcelona: amazing tapas and more

                      Costa Rican food is amazing and here is why

                      Restaurants in Cusco: where to find the best food

That's about everything there is to say for French Polynesian cuisine. I'd suggest you simply try to get invited by the locals for the best food-experiences. They love visitors and are absolutely thrilled to serve as your host and share their culinary culture.

If you have other mouth-watering suggestions on what to try in French Polynesia, feel free to comment or send us a message.

Also, please do pin and share this post for others to see.

As ever

xx

Cyn

Don't forget to subscribe to get our latest blogposts, useful travel hacks or just some entertaining stuff!