Food and drink in Tobago

You eat in three kinds of places. At the food huts in the south-west, Store Bay above all. In the fishing villages, where there are fish markets and sometimes broth at the depot. And in Crown Point, which has the most restaurants on the island according to Rough Guides, many of them on Milford Road according to Wikivoyage. If you try only one dish, make it curry crab and dumpling.

Signature dish

Curry crab and dumplingcrab in curry with flour dumplings

Store Bay

2-minute walkfrom the airport, says Rough Guides

VAT

12.5%according to PwC, as of February 2024

Tipping

5 to 15%depending on the source, service charge often included

Blue Food Festival

18 Oct 2026at Bloody Bay

Curry crab and dumpling: crab, curry, dough

The crab comes in a sauce of curry and coconut milk. With it come dumplings. Not round ones, but flat pieces of flour dough. The tourism site discovertnt and the travel blog Uncommon Caribbean both call curry crab and dumpling Tobago's signature dish.

The food huts at Store Bay

The huts line up behind the beach, with bars across the road. One is Miss Jean's, as listed by Rough Guides. Two travel blogs also name Miss Trim's, in business for over 40 years by its own account and founded by Greta Trim. Besides curry crab and dumpling the huts cook roti, pelau and stew.

Rough Guides gives the hours as daily from about 8.30am to 8.30pm. Still, don't leave it until evening. Travel blogs advise coming early, because the crab runs out.

Whether the huts will stay put is open. The island government, the THA, has been planning a new beach facility since 2024, and in August 2025 it was still at the planning stage. Ask locally, and read up first on what else to know about Store Bay.

Fish in the villages

In Castara on the north coast fishermen haul a net onto the beach by hand in the morning. The fishing depot served fish broth, according to the tourism agency (as of 2022). On Big Bay there is a restaurant, a bar and a minimart. In August the fishermen hold their Castara Fishermen's Fete.

Further south-west, in Buccoo, a fish restaurant sits upstairs in the Buccoo Integrated Facility, says Rough Guides. In Mount Irvine the beach facility had a fish market on weekdays between 4pm and 5pm, and in Parlatuvier discovertnt lists one too, plus the Glasgow Bar by the car park (both as of 2018). The market details are a few years old, so ask where you stay whether and when fish is still sold there.

What you find at the beaches and in the villages

Outside the south-west you eat wherever a beach has facilities or a village has a place to eat.

• Pigeon Point: bars at both ends, a restaurant.
• Englishman's Bay: Eula's restaurant and souvenir shop, the only building on the beach.
• Bloody Bay: a restaurant and a small bar in the THA buildings.
• Speyside: Jemma's Treehouse Kitchen on the village beach.
• Charlotteville: a few small restaurants (Wikipedia), and at Man o' War Bay stalls with food and crafts (discovertnt, as of 2018).
• Black Rock: two rum bars in the village (Rough Guides), and on Stonehaven Bay the beach restaurant shared by the two hotels.
• Roxborough: snack bars and a petrol station.

In Scarborough the choice is smaller than in Crown Point, says Wikivoyage. Many places there close early. In the capital, try cow heel or pig tail soup, which Wikivoyage recommends for Scarborough.

Our tipTake water and something to eat when you head to Pirates Bay, Arnos Vale or Back Bay. These beaches have no facilities, so no snack bar either.

Bake and shark belongs to Trinidad

And bake and shark? The dish comes from Trinidad and is best known from Maracas Bay. Cooks there increasingly use other fish instead of shark, write Wikipedia and the Guardian. Tobago has its own dish.

Rum, beer and the Christmas drinks

The best-known name is Angostura. Dr Johann Gottlieb Benjamin Siegert developed the bitters in the town of Angostura in Venezuela, and the recipe dates from 1824. In 1876 the company moved to Port of Spain. Today it is based in Laventille on Trinidad and also makes rum, including Angostura 1919, 1824, 7 Year Old, White Oak and Forres Park Puncheon.

The beer is Carib. It is brewed in Champs Fleurs on Trinidad and has been on sale since September 1950. The same brewery makes Stag.

Two drinks belong to Christmas. Sorrel is red, made from hibiscus flowers with ginger, cloves and cinnamon, sometimes with rum. Ponche de crème is an eggnog with overproof rum, lime zest and Angostura bitters.

One word of advice for the evening. The German Foreign Office warns of drink spiking, among other places in the south-west in Buccoo, Bon Accord, Black Rock and Lambeau. Keep an eye on your glass and don't accept drinks from strangers.

Tipping, tax, water

On tipping the sources disagree. A city guide for Tobago gives five to ten percent in restaurants. Travelex says a service charge is often already included, and otherwise up to 15 percent is usual for very good service. Look at the bill first: if it shows a service charge, anything extra is a bonus at most.

VAT is 12.5 percent according to PwC (as of February 2024). Older guidebooks still give 15 percent, the rate that applied until February 2016. You pay in Trinidad and Tobago dollars (TT$). On 16 October 2026 a US dollar cost about 6.7 to 6.8 TT$ according to the central bank. Mastercard and Visa are widely accepted, says the German Foreign Office, American Express mostly not. At small huts, ask before you order whether they take cards.

Better not to drink the tap water. The German Foreign Office advises bottled or boiled water.

A festival for dasheen at Bloody Bay

Dasheen is a root crop. In Tobago it counts as "blue food", and it is the subject of the Tobago Blue Food Festival, which the tourism agency lists for 18 October 2026 at Bloody Bay. Check next year's date before you travel. Whatever else the island celebrates through the year is on the page on festivals in Tobago.