Malagasy food: what you'll eat in Madagascar

Malagasy food is built on rice. It's eaten three times a day, and a meal is a big plate of it, called vary, with a laoka on the side: a stew, a broth or something grilled. The dishes to look for are romazava, a broth of beef and leafy greens often called the national dish, ravitoto with pork, chicken in coconut on the east coast, zebu in every form, and fish and seafood wherever there's a coast.

It's mild, filling and cheap. A plate of rice and laoka at a hotely, the simple eateries found in most towns, costs roughly 1 to 4 euros in 2026. You can mix Malagasy lunches with the lodge menu at night. We'd make room for the local lunches.

The laoka: dishes to try

• Romazava. The dish most people call the national one: a broth of beef or zebu with leafy greens, and garlic and ginger in the pot. The greens usually include anamalao (also spelled anamalaho), whose flower buds leave a tingling, slightly numb feeling on the tongue.
• Ravitoto. Pork slow-cooked with pounded cassava leaves until it's dark and rich, and a good deal heavier than romazava.
• Akoho sy voanio. Chicken (akoho) in a coconut (voanio) sauce, a dish of the east coast. Along that coast coconut milk goes into a lot of the cooking, fish included.
• Zebu. The humped cattle are everywhere, roughly 7 to 10 million of them, and for a long time they were eaten mostly after a ritual sacrifice, at funerals and other big family occasions. Today zebu turns up slow-cooked in a laoka and, in hotels, as a steak, very often with a green peppercorn sauce.
• Kabaro and khimo. Two regional dishes worth asking for: kabaro, lima beans with curry or coconut, around Morondava, and khimo, curried minced beef, in Mahajanga.

Malagasy cooking isn't hot. The heat comes on the side.

Lasary, sakay and the rice water

Two things sit on most tables. Lasary is a relish or pickle, usually of lemon, mango or papaya, and in the highlands often a simple salad of green beans or other vegetables. Sakay is the chilli paste, red or green, made with chilli, ginger and garlic. Try a little first. It can be very strong.

Then there's the drink. Ranovola (also called ranon'ampango) is the water boiled in the rice pot after the rice is cooked, so it picks up the toasted rice stuck to the bottom and tastes faintly of it. It comes with meals in homes and hotelys, and it should be served freshly boiled, in a clean cup. Some visitors love it. Others politely ask for a bottle of water.

Is the food safe to eat?

Care with preparation and storage matters. Rough Guides' rule for street food is a useful starting point: buy what's cooked in front of you at a busy stall, and prefer something grilled or fried over a stew that's been sitting out. Canada's travel advice puts it as boil it, cook it, peel it or leave it, which rules out raw salads and fruit you haven't peeled yourself.

Water is the bigger risk. The UK Foreign Office says tap water is unsafe, so drink and use only boiled or bottled water and avoid ice in drinks. Choose an unopened coconut that's opened in front of you, or ranovola served freshly boiled in a clean cup. Neither drink is safe simply because of its name.

The CDC recommends hepatitis A and typhoid jabs for most travellers, and adds that the typhoid jab isn't 100% effective, so care with food and water still matters. Our guide to vaccinations and malaria has the rest.

Fruit by season, vanilla, cocoa and coffee

From June to August, Bradt says, fruit is mostly citrus and bananas. From September come mangoes, pineapples and strawberries, and in October and November lychees are sold from roadside stalls in the east. The lychee harvest runs from about November into February, and much of it is shipped to France.

• Vanilla. Madagascar grows about 70 to 80% of the world's natural vanilla, most of it in the SAVA region of the north-east. Each flower opens for about a day and has to be pollinated by hand. On the Classic South, day 5 visits a vanilla plantation near Ranomafana to see how it's grown, hand-pollinated, dried and prepared (more in our Ranomafana guide). Vanilla also goes into savoury sauces, often with chicken.
• Cocoa. It's the main crop around Ambanja, on the Sambirano river in the north-west. Our 12-day north trip drives through cacao plantations on the way to the boat at Ankify. Look out for Malagasy chocolate bars in the shops: Bradt's tip is Chocolat Robert.
• Coffee. Grown mainly in the east, robusta in the lowlands towards Manakara and arabica higher up. It's drunk strong and black, often with a spoon of condensed milk, at roadside stalls with a wooden bench. Lemongrass tea, thé citronnelle, is the gentler choice.

Drinks: THB, rum and coconut

The beer is THB, Three Horses Beer, a lager brewed in Madagascar, including at the Star brewery in Antsirabe. Shop and hotel-bar prices differ, so check the menu.

The rum is more interesting. Rhum arrangé, rum steeped with fruit or spices, is found in most locally run hotels, and it's the drink to try. Dzama is a widely available bottled rum brand. On the coast, punch coco mixes rum with coconut milk.

You may also be offered betsabetsa, fermented sugarcane juice, on the east coast. Rum is also made locally all over the island, as toaka gasy, and what's in the bottle varies. Ask your guide before you accept a second glass.

What hotels and tourist restaurants serve

Hotels and lodges mostly cook international menus with a French accent, which goes back to the colonial years along with the baguettes and pastries. Expect zebu steak, fish and a dessert, with three courses usually costing about 10 to 20 euros a head. Smaller, locally run hotels often cook Malagasy food, and Bradt says it's almost always excellent. In remote places there's usually one set menu, so tell the hotel early if you don't eat something.

Madagascar makes its own wine, which Bradt calls not world class but sometimes very pleasant. Try the Malagasy yoghurt too, sold in even the smallest shops.

Eating as a vegetarian

Tell us before the trip if you're vegetarian or vegan. Beans and greens can form a meal, but ask explicitly about stock and other ingredients as well as pieces of meat. Bradt notes that communication is often the difficulty when ordering meatless dishes. Your driver-guide can explain in Malagasy what you do and don't eat.

What a meal costs in 2026

Use these as rough planning allowances in October 2026, rather than fixed menu prices. For conversion, about 5,000 ariary to a euro is a working approximation; check the current exchange rate:

• Rice and laoka at a hotely. About 6,000 to 20,000 ariary, roughly 1 to 4 euros.
• Three courses at a lodge. About 10 to 20 euros a head.

All in, with lunch, dinner, drinks and tips, budget roughly 25 to 45 euros a day each. Pay in ariary cash, since cards work in few places, and tip about 5% in restaurants, 10% if it was very good. More in money in Madagascar and what a trip costs.

Food on our trips

Breakfast is included every day on our set trips. Lunches and dinners mostly aren't, except where a trip lists them, so you choose where to eat, and your driver-guide can point you to a good hotely on the road. On the Classic South, the lunch stop in Ranomafana is Centre ValBio, a research and conservation centre. On the Eastern trip, day 5's lunch is inside the Palmarium reserve.

If you'd like to cook as well as eat, Malagasy cooking classes are among the extras on our services page. Tell us when you send your dates and we'll see where one fits. For the customs around the table, see Malagasy culture, and for the rest of a first trip, our travel tips.

Photos: Sandy Ravaloniaina, Sitraka and Antonio Sánchez on Unsplash.