Places to eat in Reunion

L'Hacienda is a casual outdoor restaurant next to Hermitage beach in on the western coast of Reunion. Its menu features a variety of seafood dishes and local curry dishes, in addition to meats We enjoyed our meals, especially the vanilla-flavored shrimp curry. The service was friendly

There is also a bar in addition to the restaurant.

La Bobine is an outdoor restaurant on the beach at Hermitage-les-Bains. It has a beautiful setting among the palm trees overlooking the beach. You can literally feel the sea breezes as you dine. In the winter, they have plastic sheeting to preserve the view, but keep out the wind. We were there in July, when it was a little chilly at night, but we still enjoyed our dinner.

The menu features a variety of seafood dishes, as well as local meat and curry dishes. We tried two of the chicken and prawn curry dishes and found them to be very tasty. Our dishes were accompanied by lots of flavorful rice.

The staff was friendly, and was very accomodating for our 8-year old daughter. She enjoyed the restaurant, particularly the great ice cream dish that they brought her for dessert.

In summary, La Bobine is a great place to have a drink and a good dinner at the end of a long day of sightseeing.

Il Padrino is a casual Italian restaurant that was down the road from our hotel. After passing by it a few times, we decided to try it out and were glad that we did. The restaurant has both indoor and outdoor seating, and is very family-friendly. The owner of the restaurant is Italian, and was very friendly when we met him.

The menu includes a large variety of pizzas, as well as other traditional Italian entrees and appetizers. We had pizzas and loved them. We were stuffed and happy when we left.

Le Glacier is a small ice cream shop in St.-Gilles-Les-Bains that we visited a few times during our stay on Reunion. They had a great range of at least 30 flavors of ice cream and sorbet, including many that we had never seen before. We particularly enjoyed tiramisu, pear, and mangosteen, among the flavors that we tried at Le Glacier. Before you decide upon a flavor, they let you have a free tasting, wehich we found to be very helpful.

Our one complaint about Le Glacier is that it closed early, at around 7PM each night. There were a couple of times when we would have liked to have been able to go their after dinner on our way back to the hotel.

Set right on the beach, this is a great spot to relax. The food isnt really cheap but it is very good. You can eat well for about $30.00 Australian.One of the staff speaks very good English.

Favorite Dish: The chicken curry was tasty and the coffee after was excellant.

Bourbon comes in a stubby brown bottle. It was first made in La Reunion in 1962. I don't know what they drank before then? However, it is more commonly known by its name Dodo due to the Dodo bird which is on the label. I don't know, maybe too many Dodo turn the natives into dumb dumbs who cannot fly or get any work done afterwards? In any case, in the hot weather of the Indian Ocean in summertime, and after a day spent hiking or just sitting on the beach, a nice cool Dodo sure goes down well. You can quote me on that.

Favorite Dish: The island is also known for its rum made from sugar cane and local table wines.

The first week we were staying in huts and had the communal dinner of karrie, rice and beans, along with salad and bread. In the second week, we were in the Novotel beach hotel and had buffets each day. I really don't know what else that La Reunion is famous for? They boast creole type cooking and due to the different founding nationalities on the island - African, French, Indian and Asian - the food should be of a fusion style using local ingredients and due to the cliimate be quite spicey. There are for example, Samoussa from India, Bouchons from China, seafood, and a native rum made from sugarcane which is grown on the island, but which is not native itself. Being French, of course, they had good desserts and pastries as well as good breads. We didn't starve.

We did not get a lot of variety, but mostly variations on the same dish. As good as it was, it did get monotonous after a week. However, at the beach hotel, we had buffet breakfasts and dinners. For the most part we were on our own for lunch. The buffets offered good variety. I am not a big buffet person. Usually, you get the same selection over and over each night, with a few new dishes added to the perennial favorites. Afterall the hotel has to cater to a wide variety of wishes. Usually, the food goes cold too quickly. There is defintaly an incentive to get to the dinner buffet early rather than later. However, I have to admit the Novotel did try to put some variety into their meals and replace dishes as they ran low or got cold. The food was good. Good ingredients and well prepared. It made a nice break from eating karrie every night, although that was on the menu each night, too.