Bahamian food is essentially the cooking of poor coastal fishing communities — conch, grouper, snapper, peas-and-rice, boiled bread, pigeon peas, coconut. Done well it is excellent; done badly it is hotel-buffet bland. The best food in Nassau is at Arawak Cay (Fish Fry), where you eat what local people eat at local prices. Cable Beach has more ambitious restaurants at resort prices, and Paradise Island has Atlantis's celebrity-chef outposts.
The signature dishes worth ordering: cracked conch (pounded thin, breaded, fried — the Bahamian schnitzel), conch salad (raw, citrus-marinated, peppery), stewed fish (red snapper with thick tomato gravy, eaten for breakfast with boiled grits), rock lobster in season (August to March), and pigeon peas and rice as a side with everything.