Gecko Bar & Restaurant

Gecko sits on the sand at Pereybere beach in the north — one of the most local-facing beaches on the island, popular with Mauritian families on weekends — and manages to serve both the after-swim crowd ordering Phoenix beer and the evening crowd wanting a proper meal without losing the thread on either. The kitchen runs from noon until 11pm, which makes it one of the few good late-night options in the north. Wood-fired pizza is the backbone of the menu: a proper Margherita, a tuna and jalapeño that local surfers favour, and a special board that changes daily with whatever the kitchen feels like doing. The seafood platter — served on a wooden board with two types of locally caught grilled fish, a half lobster, four grilled prawns, and a side of fries — is the communal-table dish of choice, best ordered with a jug of frozen daiquiri and shared among four. The rum cocktail list is extensive and well-made; the passion fruit daiquiri and the coconut mojito are the signatures. Gecko has the easy, inclusive energy of a beach bar that hasn't tried to become something more sophisticated than it needs to be. It's open until midnight on Fridays and Saturdays, when a DJ takes over from the restaurant playlist and the tables push back to make room for dancing.