Haitian cooking is Creole at its most concentrated: griot fried twice in sour orange, djon-djon mushroom rice, pikliz that bites back. Port-au-Prince serves it three ways — market stalls downtown, chef kitchens in Pétionville, and charcoal carts after dark.
Downtown's working food market spreads along Rue Salomon from dawn: pyramids of djon-djon mushrooms, scotch bonnet, cassava bread and live poultry. Vendors ladle akasan, a spiced corn drink, into cups from 07:00. Cash only.
Haiti's homegrown bakery-canteen chain, founded 1990. The Delmas branch turns out pâté kòde (flaky beef or herring turnovers), griot plates with pikliz, and tablèt pistach at the counter. Air-conditioned and generator-backed.
The hillside market beside Place Saint-Pierre sells what the Kenscoff trucks bring down each morning: avocados the size of footballs, mirliton, thyme bundles, and sacks of Haitian arabica roasted on the spot in oil-drum roasters.
Rebo has roasted Haitian arabica since 1953. Its espresso bar pulls cappuccino and cold brew from single-origin Thiotte and Baptiste lots, with beans sold by the pound and ground to order at the counter.
Breakfast on the fretwork veranda at 60 Avenue Christophe: eggs with sos pwa nwa, fried plantain and pain patate. The 1887 mansion is the model for Graham Greene's Hotel Trianon and has fed writers and painters for decades.
Chef-driven Haitian-Caribbean cooking in a garden courtyard off Rue Métellus. The kitchen plates lambi in creole sauce, tassot kabrit and diri kole ak pwa with a finish that is rare anywhere in the capital.
Italian-run gelateria beside Place Boyer scooping tropical flavours you will not meet elsewhere: corossol (soursop), grenadia, cashew, and a kremas gelato spiked with Barbancourt rum. Wood-fired pizza from the same oven.
Pétionville's long-running supper club pairs grilled lambi and filet au poivre with live jazz and kompa from around 20:00. The bar list runs deep on Barbancourt Réserve Spéciale and rum sours mixed with fresh lime.
The farmers' market at 1,500 m, an hour above the capital, is where the city's leeks, strawberries, carrots and watercress come from. Growers sell off tarps along the main road while hot ginger tea and boiled corn keep the cold out.
A mountain kitchen serving plateau cooking: soup joumou, poul kreyòl, fresh trout and cool-climate vegetables, with mist drifting through the pines outside. Portions are sized and priced for Haitian families, not hotel guests.
Cliff-edge bar and grill on Boutilliers Road looking straight down over the bay. Order fried lambi, bannann peze and pikliz with a cold Prestige, the lager brewed in Port-au-Prince since 1976, as the light drops over the harbour.
Charcoal fritay carts fire up at dusk around Place Boyer: griot, tassot kabrit, bannann peze and marinad, everything finished with a fistful of pikliz. Vendors pour kremas, the spiced coconut-rum cream, from recycled bottles.