Cuisine

It's a globe-spanning display of produce that migrated here along the paths of the sailing ships that brought settlers, slaves and servants to Mauritius.

"It's a melting pot, curry from India, noodles from China," says Linzy Bacbotte, a Mauritian singer and advocate of Creole culture. "It's very colorful, all the spices. And if you want a snack, the dried fish. It's yum."

She also likes a drink called alouda, sort of a milkshake with tapioca balls and sweetened with flavored syrups.

But Mauritius is one of those places where a bounty of snacks are never far away.

As a Kiwi chef working in the development space throughout the Pacific region he was raised in and loves, Robert says he is the one who is being “developed” in the process.

His passion to learn about the Pacific, its people, their cultures and their cuisines comes from within.

“I was raised in Fiji and Samoa … many of my close friends still live there, and I would do anything to help these countries out,” Robert says.