The original spice island still cooks like one: Zanzibari biryanis and pilaus heavy with clove and cardamom, urojo soup at hole-in-the-wall counters and octopus curry that converts sceptics. A spice-farm tour makes sense of it all in an afternoon. At the Forodhani Gardens night market, stick to the stalls busy with locals and the freshly squeezed sugar-cane juice — and treat glistening piles of pre-cooked seafood with polite suspicion.
Featured in Ten tropical escapes where the food is half the point · Tropical