Thanks to the island’s multi-cultural history, Mauritian cuisine is a melting pot of some of the world’s best culinary traditions. French, Indian, Chinese and African influences flavour Mauritian dishes with saffron, cinnamon, cardamom, thyme and basil. Thanks to the extensive coastline, Mauritian cuisine benefits from and abundance of fresh seafood from meaty octopus to tender squid to sweet shrimp. Expect fresh tropical fruit form the familiar pineapples, coconuts and mangoes to the more exotic longan, custard apples and love apples. Tomatoes feature in a lot of Mauritian dishes and are known as pommes d’amour or “the apples of love”.