A Taste of Belize: Marie Sharp’s, Belikin & the Dishes to Try

Belizean food is what happens when Maya, Creole, Garifuna, Mestizo, East Indian, Mennonite and Chinese kitchens spend three centuries in a country the size of Massachusetts. It is not a fusion cuisine invented for visitors. It is several cuisines that live next door to each other and borrow constantly — and almost all of it arrives with a bottle of the same hot sauce on the table.

Here is what to order, what to drink, and what to take home.

Marie Sharp's: the bottle on every table

You will not eat a meal in Belize without meeting Marie Sharp's. It is on the table at the beach bar, at the airport, in the villa kitchen, and in the hand of the man next to you at the fry-jack stand.

The story is genuinely good. Marie Sharp started making sauce in 1981 in a small kitchen on her family's Melinda Estates farm outside Dangriga, in the Stann Creek Valley, as a way of using the habaneros growing on the property. What made it different was the base: carrots, hand-chopped, rather than the vinegar that carries most hot sauces. The carrot rounds off the habanero's edge and lets the fruit of the pepper through, which is why the sauce tastes of something other than heat.

It was originally sold as Melinda's. After a long fight with an importer over the brand name, she gave the name up in exchange for her freedom and re-launched under her own. Today the sauces ship to North America, Europe, Asia and Australia, made from habaneros, carrots, onions and garlic grown and hand-prepared in the Stann Creek Valley — and Marie Sharp was inducted into the Hot Sauce Hall of Fame in 2016.

Belikin: the beer of Belize

Look closely at the label on a bottle of Belikin and you'll see a stepped pyramid. That is the Temple of the Masonry Altars at Altun Ha — a real Maya monument, an hour north of Belize City, that you can go and stand in front of. Few countries put a national monument on the national beer; see our guide to Altun Ha and Xunantunich if you want to close the loop.

The Belize Brewing Company was founded by the Bowen family in 1969 and still brews in Ladyville, just outside Belize City. The name comes from a Maya term associated with the Belize River, usually translated as road to the east. The company motto — Onli Eena Belize, Creole for "only in Belize" — is the whole marketing strategy and it is fundamentally accurate.

What to drink

• Belikin BeerThe flagship. A classic European-style lager around 4.8%. Cold, straightforward, correct after a day on the water.
• Belikin StoutDark, sweet, velvety, faintly smoky. A cult following and the one to try if you think you don't like stout in the tropics.
• Lighthouse LagerLighter and crisper at around 4.2%. The long-afternoon beer.
• Belikin PremiumMaltier and fuller, in the taller bottle. Less widely stocked.
• SeasonalsSorrel Stout and Chocolate Stout appear around the holidays — the chocolate one nods to a Maya cacao tradition that started here.

Beyond beer: One Barrel rum, aged and drinkable neat; local cashew wine and craboo wine, which are exactly as odd and as worth trying as they sound; and fresh juices — watermelon, soursop, lime — that turn up everywhere and are often the better call at lunchtime.

The dishes to order

Fry jacks

Breakfast, and the thing guests get most evangelical about. Dough, deep-fried, puffed hollow, served hot — either plain with jam and honey, or stuffed with beans, cheese, eggs or chicken. Delma makes them at the villa. Order them anywhere you see them.

Stew chicken with rice and beans

The national dish, and not the same thing as "beans and rice" — the distinction is real and locals will make it. Rice and beans are cooked together in coconut milk; beans and rice are cooked separately and served side by side. The chicken is marinated in recado rojo, an annatto-based seasoning paste that gives it the deep red colour, then browned and stewed. Potato salad on the side, hot sauce on top.

Ceviche

Belizean ceviche is closer to a salad than the Peruvian version: conch or shrimp cured in lime with finely diced onion, tomato, cilantro and habanero, scooped with tortilla chips, eaten with a cold beer and no ceremony. Conch ceviche depends on the season — the fishery closes in summer and can close early in spring when the national quota is met.

Lobster, in season

Caribbean spiny lobster, grilled and split, is the summer and autumn luxury — the season runs 1 July to 28 February, and it's closed for the four months of the breeding cycle. Don't order fresh local lobster in spring; a kitchen that offers it is doing something it shouldn't.

Whole fried snapper

Head, tail, scored sides, fried crisp, with rice and plantain. The best value on any menu on Ambergris Caye, and what your catch becomes if you go out for a reef or deep-sea trip and bring it home.

Garnaches, salbutes and panades

The Mestizo street-food trio, all built on fried corn masa. Garnaches: flat tortilla, refried beans, cabbage, cheese. Salbutes: puffed tortilla, chicken, pickled onion, tomato. Panades: fried pockets stuffed with fish or beans. Cheap, fast, and reliably the best thing you eat all week.

Hudut and the Garifuna kitchen

From the Garifuna communities of the southern coast: hudut is fish stewed in coconut broth, served with mashed green and ripe plantain pounded in a wooden mortar. Sere is its soupier cousin. If you see either on a menu, order it; the Garifuna presence in Belize is a UNESCO-recognised living culture and the food is its most accessible edge. Our short history of Belize covers how that community arrived.

Tamales, bollos and conch fritters

Masa steamed in plantain or banana leaf; conch chopped into a spiced batter and fried. Both turn up at roadside stalls and both are worth stopping for.

Gibnut, if you're curious

The paca — a large forest rodent, sometimes called "the royal rat" after it was served to Queen Elizabeth II in 1985. It's a genuine Belizean delicacy, usually stewed. Try it or don't; nobody will mind either way.

Sweet things

Belizean chocolate deserves its own paragraph. Cacao has been grown in the Toledo District for a very long time indeed, and small producers now make single-origin bars from it — the Belize Chocolate Company shop on Front Street in San Pedro is the easy place to find them. Then: coconut tarts, rum cake, powder buns, and soursop or craboo ice cream, which is what Manelly's in San Pedro is for.

Eating on Ambergris Caye

In town, the standbys are dependable: Elvi's Kitchen for proper Belizean cooking, Blue Water Grill on the beach, and The Truck Stop out on the lagoon road for a shipping-container food park with a pool and live music. Our Secret Beach dining guide covers the feet-in-the-water bars on our side of the island and the kitchens islanders actually use.

At the villa, Delma cooks breakfast every morning and can take the rest of the week off your hands as well — which, in practice, means fry jacks in the morning, ceviche in the afternoon, and whatever the boat brought in grilled at dusk. The kitchen is yours if you'd rather cook, and Everaldo runs a grocery trip before you arrive so the fridge isn't empty when you walk in.

When you do want to eat out, Delma and Everaldo make the bookings — tables in San Pedro on a Saturday night, or in high season generally, need calling ahead, and they know which kitchens are worth the drive on a given night. Same for the boat captains, guides and carts. Tell them the shape of the week and it arrives already arranged.

Common questions

What food is Belize known for?

Stew chicken with rice and beans is the national dish, marinated in annatto-based recado rojo and served with potato salad. Fry jacks — puffed fried dough — are the breakfast staple. Also ceviche, whole fried snapper, garnaches, salbutes, panades, and Garifuna dishes such as hudut, fish stewed in coconut broth with pounded plantain.

What is the difference between rice and beans and beans and rice in Belize?

Rice and beans are cooked together in coconut milk and served as one dish. Beans and rice are cooked separately and served side by side. The distinction is real and locals will make it.

What is Marie Sharp's hot sauce?

Belize's national hot sauce, made in the Stann Creek Valley since 1981. What makes it different is the base: hand-chopped carrots rather than vinegar, which rounds off the habanero and lets the fruit of the pepper through. It was originally sold as Melinda's before a dispute with an importer led to the rebrand.

What beer do they drink in Belize?

Belikin, brewed by the Belize Brewing Company in Ladyville since 1969. The standard lager runs about 4.8 percent; there is also a dark, sweet stout, a lighter Lighthouse Lager at about 4.2 percent, a maltier Premium, and seasonal sorrel and chocolate stouts. The label shows the Temple of the Masonry Altars at Altun Ha.

When can you eat lobster in Belize?

Caribbean spiny lobster season runs 1 July to 28 February. It is closed 1 March to 30 June, and fresh local lobster should not be served during the closure. Conch has its own season, officially 1 October to 30 June, which can close early once the national quota is met.

What food should I bring home from Belize?

Marie Sharp's in several heat levels, single-origin Belizean chocolate, recado rojo in its small red bricks so you can make stew chicken at home, and One Barrel rum.