Where to eat
Island cuisine & eating out
Blending the traditions of French cuisine with an exotic Pacific touch, Wallis boasts a wide range of snack bars and restaurants. Most are located at Hahake in the island’s centre, but you’ll also find excellent restaurants in the north and south of the island. In Futuna, in addition to the two hotels offering catering services, there are a number of small snack bars open throughout the day.
Local chefs and cooks concoct a wide variety of vibrantly colourful dishes made with fresh local products. From ocean-fresh fish and shellfish to locally grown fruit and vegetables, a wealth of delicious traditional and contemporary delights await you.
Cuisine in Wallis and Futuna blends culinary influences from other Pacific islands such as French Polynesia, so one of our most popular island dishes is fresh fish salad. There are almost endless recipe variations for fish salad but the best-known features coconut milk with diced tomatoes, cucumbers, carrots, onions and lashings of lime.
Local specialities are slowly cooked in a traditional earthen oven, known as an “Umu” in Wallisian. A number of dishes are prepared in advance and wrapped in banana leaves or woven palm fronds: freshly caught fish and suckling pig are accompanied by taros and yams. When everything is ready to cook, you simply dig a hole in the ground, place all your dishes on a bed of red hot stones and cover the lot with banana leaves and earth. The deliciously moist result is worth the wait!