Bahamian cooking is built around whatever the sea provides: conch above all else, followed by grouper, snapper, lobster, and crab. The cuisine is simple and good, and the best versions of it are found at roadside shacks and dock-side fish fry spots, not fine-dining restaurants.
Conch is the national food. Queen conch is pulled from shallow waters and eaten raw in salads (conch salad — diced with onion, pepper, cucumber, citrus), cracked and fried, or made into fritters and chowder. Fresh conch salad prepared in front of you at a beach shack is one of the better food experiences in the Caribbean. The Arawak Cay Fish Fry in Nassau, locally known as "The Fish Fry," is the best place to try it.
Grouper is the most popular fish, served fried, grilled, or as a sandwich. Rock lobster (spiny lobster, no claws) is in season from August through March and is excellent grilled simply with butter.
Johnny cake — a dense, slightly sweet cornbread — appears as a side with most meals. Peas and rice is the classic Bahamian starch, made with pigeon peas and sometimes coconut milk.
Souse is a weekend breakfast staple: a thin, slightly spicy broth made with pig's feet, chicken, or sheep's tongue, served with Johnny cake. It's an acquired taste, but locals swear by it.
For drinks, the Bahamas rum punch (rum, citrus, and grenadine) is everywhere. Kalik is the local beer — light and drinkable, and practically a national symbol.
On Nassau, good Bahamian food is concentrated at Arawak Cay, along the Fish Fry strip east of downtown on West Bay Street, and in the markets of the Over-the-Hill neighborhood. On the Family Islands, eating is often simpler — a few local restaurants and whatever the fishing boats brought in.