Tongan food is simple, filling, and built around a handful of staples: taro, sweet potato, cassava, breadfruit, coconut, and fish. Pork and chicken appear at feasts; beef is less common. The cooking style is unfussy and the flavours are often subtle.
Lu is the dish most visitors try first: taro leaves wrapped around meat (usually pork, lamb, or corned beef) with coconut cream, cooked slowly in banana leaves. It's rich and satisfying. 'Ota ika — raw fish marinated in citrus juice with coconut cream, tomato, and cucumber — is the Tongan equivalent of ceviche and excellent when fresh. Octopus in coconut cream (feke) appears regularly and is worth ordering.
The umu — an underground earth oven using heated stones — is the traditional cooking method for feasts. Food cooked this way has a distinctive smoky depth. Sunday feasts, especially at family homes and some guesthouses, are the best place to encounter proper umu cooking. A few resorts on Tongatapu stage weekly traditional feasts that give visitors access to this.
Restaurant options are limited outside Nuku'alofa and Neiafu (Vava'u). In the capital you'll find Chinese restaurants, a few international cafes, and some local places serving rice and meat dishes. Neiafu has a handful of decent restaurants catering to the yachting crowd. Outside these two towns, your guesthouse kitchen is likely your main option.
Kava is everywhere — drunk at ceremonies, at the end of a working day, and at social gatherings. It's made by grinding the root of the kava plant into a powder, mixing with water, and straining. It tastes earthy and slightly numbing on the tongue. It's non-alcoholic and mildly sedating. Alcohol is available in bars and restaurants in Nuku'alofa and Vava'u, but Sunday restrictions apply broadly — many places don't serve it that day.
Fresh fruit from local markets is uniformly excellent. Look for pawpaw, mango (in season), and bananas.