Central Market, Chinatown and Port Louis Street Food

Ask any Mauritian why they come into Port Louis on a Saturday morning and the answer is almost always food. Within six blocks between Queen Street and Royal Road, Indian, Chinese, Creole and French culinary traditions collide in cast-iron market aisles and shophouse alleys that have been feeding port workers for nearly two centuries.

Port Louis Central Market (Bazar de Port Louis)

Bounded by Queen Street and Farquhar Street just two minutes' walk from Caudan Waterfront and Aapravasi Ghat, the Central Market has stood at the heart of the city since Victorian ironwork halls were erected in the 1840s. Enter through the main wrought-iron gates into the fruit and vegetable pavilion, where pyramids of miniature Victoria pineapples, lychees, bitter gourds, curry leaves and fiery green and red mazavarou chillies perfume the air, while herbalists at generations-old stalls prescribe dried island roots and tisanes for every ailment.

Head straight to the back food section for three essential Mauritian street snacks:

• Dholl Puri: the national dish of Mauritius, adapted from Indian dal paratha by Bhojpuri-speaking indentured families. Paper-thin wheat flatbreads stuffed with ground yellow split peas and turmeric are griddled on a convex iron tawa, then folded warm in pairs around butter-bean curry (cari gros pois), tomato rougaille, coriander satini and pickled chillies.
• Gateaux Piments and Farata: crunchy deep-fried balls of soaked split peas, spring onions, cumin and dried chillies (gateaux piments), or flaky griddled farata flatbreads wrapped around deer, chicken or seven-vegetable curry.
• Alouda: a sweet, icy glass of cold milk tinted pink or pale green with rose or almond syrup, bobbing with swollen basil seeds (tukmaria) and ribbons of grated agar-agar jelly, poured at the legendary cold-milk stalls inside the market hall.

Jummah Mosque and Chinatown along Royal Road

Walk three blocks north-east along Royal Road to the white-and-emerald Jummah Mosque (built in the 1850s around an ancient Indian badamier almond tree), where non-Muslim visitors dressed modestly can step into the serene marble courtyard outside prayer hours. Immediately beyond the mosque rises the red-and-gold Chinatown Gate. Settled by Hakka and Cantonese merchants in the 19th century, Chinatown's streets (especially Rue Monsieur, Emmanuel Anquetil Street and Venpin Street) are painted with lively street-art murals and lined with corner shops steaming Sino-Mauritian boulettes: delicate dumplings of chayote squash (chouchou), fish, beef and tofu served in a bowl of fragrant spring-onion broth or over fried mine noodles. Fit this food walk into our three-day Port Louis itinerary.