Easter Island Food & Traditional Cuisine

Food on Rapa Nui divides between what the island produces and what arrives on the boat.

The sea provides: tuna, mahi-mahi, kana kana and other Pacific fish, along with spiny lobster. Fish is the best thing to eat here by a wide margin, and it is genuinely fresh.

The land gives sweet potato, taro, yam, banana, sugarcane, pineapple and guava, grown in small plots — the traditional Polynesian crop set, some of it in stone-walled enclosures that shelter plants from the wind.

Everything else — flour, rice, dairy, beef, most vegetables, beer, fuel — comes by cargo ship from the mainland every few weeks, or by air. When a shipment is delayed, shelves empty, and prices throughout reflect the freight.

Chilean influence is strong in the restaurants, and there is good ceviche.

Umu rapa nui is the island’s traditional method and its celebratory meal: a pit lined with hot volcanic stones, layered with chicken, pork, fish, sweet potato, taro and banana wrapped in leaves, covered over and left to steam for hours. It is made for family occasions and festivals, and some guesthouses arrange one for guests.

Ceviche of tuna, cured in lime with coconut milk in the local version, which distinguishes it from the mainland Chilean style.

Po’e, a baked pudding of mashed banana or pumpkin with flour, served warm — the Rapa Nui version of a dish found across Polynesia.

Grilled kana kana, a local fish, cooked simply over coals with lemon.

Empanadas filled with tuna rather than beef, sold from small kitchens in Hanga Roa.

Also: spiny lobster when available; tunu ahi, fish grilled directly on hot stones; and the pineapple and guava, which are very good.

Hanga Roa holds everything: a small municipal market, two or three supermarkets, a fish counter where the day’s catch is sold, and a scattering of restaurants along the seafront and the main street.

The cargo ship is an event. Stock and prices both shift around its arrival, and running out of a staple between deliveries is normal.

Eating is unhurried. Service runs at island pace, kitchens close early, and Sunday is quiet. Plan around it rather than against it.

Self-catering is how most budget travellers manage the cost, and many guesthouses have kitchens.

Tipping around 10 per cent is customary, as on the Chilean mainland.

Water from the tap is drinkable but heavily mineralised and not to everyone’s taste.

Nothing is grown for wine on Rapa Nui — the wind, the salt and the size of the island rule it out — but Chilean wine is on every list.

What arrives is the mainland’s output: Carmenere, Cabernet Sauvignon and Syrah from the Central Valley, Sauvignon Blanc from Casablanca and Leyda, and Chardonnay from Limari. It is marked up substantially for freight, so a bottle that is inexpensive in Santiago de Chile is not inexpensive here, but the range in the better restaurants is good.

Pisco, the grape brandy claimed by both Chile and Peru, is drunk as a pisco sour and is the standard aperitif.

Local beer is brewed on the island in small quantities alongside the imported Chilean brands.

Traditionally the island had no fermented drink of its own; sugarcane was chewed, and the ceremonial drink culture familiar from western Polynesia did not establish itself here.