Lying in the city-center of Saint-Denis, the chef-lieu of Reunion Island, “Le Massalé” restaurant proposes specialities from Gujarat, a state of Western India. The name of the restaurant in itself is quite evocative. “Massalé”, “massala” in Tamil, is a powder made of saffron, different spices ground together and dried herbs. Indian cuisine is quite spicy and colourful.

For the past 35 years, Aboubakar Motara, the owner of the restaurant, has offered his clients a wide range of sweet and savoury specialities in a very friendly atmosphere.
Among the most common of specialities, are the samosas, triangular shaped pastry shells stuffed with meat, cod-fish, chicken or cheese. Vegetarian samosas are made of pickles, fine-cut spiced vegetables. In “Le Massalé” one can also find a standard of Reunion Island cuisine: the “bonbons piments”. These are small golden balls made from Madagascar bean flour, chilli pepper, ginger, green onions and coriander.

One can also enjoy catless - some sort of spicy flat cakes made of chopped chicken, brinjal fritters and beek kebabe - spicy beef balls. Quite the same spices are used for these specialities: coriander (cotomili in Creole), ginger, garlic, turmeric and locally-grown saffron.