Where to eat in Curaçao: Krioyo food and where to start

Curaçao eats like the crossroads it is. The home cooking is Krioyo, the island’s own creole kitchen, and around it sit Dutch, Portuguese, Venezuelan and Indonesian influences that arrived by boat and stayed. The quickest way to eat well is to try the Krioyo staples first and treat everything else as a bonus.

What to order

Stoba is the everyday stew, usually goat or beef, slow-cooked and served with funchi, a firm cornmeal side, or tutu, a bean and cornmeal mash. Keshi yena is the showpiece: a shell of Edam or Gouda cheese filled with spiced meat, a leftover of the Dutch cheese trade turned into something local. Pastechi are the fried pastries you eat for breakfast or a snack, and a good one is the fastest test of a kitchen.

For lunch, the old market in Punda cooks the plainest and often the best version of all of it. Eat where the tables are full.

The kitchens

Before you go

Ring ahead where you can. Smaller Krioyo kitchens keep their own hours and the market stalls sell out of the day’s stew by early afternoon. The number on each page is the restaurant’s own.