FRYday Fish Fry: A Must-Do in St. Lucia

When planning a trip to St. Lucia, aim to visit the Gros Islet FRYday party. What an experience! Restaurants transform into street vendors, grilling outside, with lively music and street vendors selling rum punch. It feels like a block party.

Getting to Gros Islet

The bus network in St. Lucia works well if you’re traveling around the country between major cities. To go anywhere else, you should rent a car. We took the bus from the capital, Castries, to Gros Islet for just 4 EC per person.

If you’re following my 10-day St. Lucia Itinerary, plan to arrive in Gros Islet on a Thursday so that you have the full day on Friday to explore Pigeon Island and then work up an appetite for the fish fry.

For a single meal, you may just need 30 EC per person. We ended up getting 3 plates of food, 2 rum punches, 4 beers throughout the night, totaling around 150 EC for 2 people.

Fish Fry Food

Initially, the Gros Islet Fryday vibes felt like an authentic experience when we arrived around 6:30pm. It seemed like mostly locals getting a bite to eat around Duke’s. However, by 8:30pm, the music shifted to something seemingly meant for older cruise-goers. Mini-busses started arriving with tourists from the nearby hotels. Regardless, we had a good time but left around 9pm.

The food varied in pricing, with some dishes around 30 EC per plate and others, like the conch, being more expensive.

Eat at Dukes

One key vendor to visit is Duke’s Place, where the line can get long and loop around the block. I suggest you eat there first at 6:30pm to avoid the crowd.

Stand in line when you get there. You may need to wait for the freshest batch of fish to get off the grill! There were two types of fish being grilled as well as conch. At Duke’s all the plates were 30 EC.

We ordered marlin fish and then got rice. At the end, we were offered a huge spoonful of a garlic-onion oil and bread. Beer cost 6 EC.

There is lots of outdoor seating available. The vibe is legit!

After wandering up and down the street, you may want to get another plate to share at 8pm at a different vendor. We got conch as our next meal, but it was EC 55! This was definitely a little steep especially compared to the same thing available for EC 30 at Dukes, but it was interesting to try. Just take a look at all the offerings! Lobster, conch, chicken, and more. Vegetarians can get the provisions without opting for the grilled items.

Our second plate of conch and provisions (sides). Plus there are tons of sauces to add to your plate. The classic side is the “green fig salad,” which is actually a green plantain mash. I loved the habanero hot sauce on St. Lucia.

Rum Punch at FRYday

We read that the Irie bar that serves rum punch for 10 EC was among the best on the island. It felt like pure alcohol to me, haha. Out of all the rum punches I’ve had on islands; I have to admit that St. Lucia’s pales in comparison. I personally don’t like the standard punch mixture, but that’s just me! You should try it for yourself.

I tried another rum punch that seemed legit but had the same standard mixture—the star fruit looked good though!

For the rest of the night, we stopped trying to like the rum punch and instead relied on the Piton beer, which we had at the top of DAX Bar and Grill. I suggest you stop at DAX too for a beer and rest; though walking the street party is fun, it actually isn’t that big.

Is the Gros Islet FRYday safe?

I felt like the Gros Islet Fryday area was safe. We were told not to walk back at night in Gros Islet and instead take a taxi, but that would have ended up being another $15. Instead, we just walked quickly back to our Airbnb… One guy was walking around making birds out of leaves and the same guy was also selling weed. However, we didn’t see any weird behavior; there were people of all ages on FRYday.

9pm views from the pier