The World’s 10 Best African Restaurants
Explore ten african restaurants around the world, from Cape Town, South Africa to Nairobi, Kenya. Discover the restaurants and plan your next dining experience.
FYN
South Africa
FYN is a restaurant in Cape Town, South Africa, trading from the 5th floor of Speaker’s Corner at 37 Parliament Street in the city centre. The restaurant presents itself as a modern African dining room shaped by South African ingredients and a Japanese culinary philosophy, with a menu built around seasonality and restraint rather than a fixed à la carte format. Its current online menus show lunch and dinner seatings, with the option of experience-style dining and separate plant-based and pescatarian menus. The kitchen’s food language draws on the Cape and broader South African landscape: dishes reference Cape Peninsula tuna, kingklip, langoustine, springbok, ostrich, lamb, kelp, abalone and indigenous botanicals such as buchu, Cape mountain sage and kapokbos. The official site also notes that FYN can accommodate most dietary needs with prior notice, while excluding severe or fatal allergies and allium or garlic allergies. Menus indicate a cashless payment policy and a discretionary service charge. The restaurant’s service is organised around tasting-menu experiences for lunch and dinner, with paired drinks available, including a South African terroir pairing and a cellar and rarities pairing. Current menus show a weekday-to-Saturday schedule, with lunch and dinner seatings at set times and some lunch formats available only for a limited period. The site also states that guests may order the dinner experience at lunch if seated by 13:00, which reinforces the restaurant’s tightly managed pacing. FYN’s online identity emphasises a compact, elevated city-centre setting rather than a broad hotel-style operation. The restaurant describes its space as intentionally balanced between stillness and energy, and its team is led by chef-founder Peter Tempelhoff, culinary director Ashley Moss and sommelier and service director Jennifer Hugé. Together, the setting, menu structure and ingredient-led cooking create a precise, contemporary fine-dining experience anchored in Cape Town’s urban and coastal character.
Akoko
London, UK
Akoko is a restaurant in London, UK.
Ikoyi
London, UK
Ikoyi is a restaurant at 180 Strand, in central London, occupying a site in the Strand area of WC2R 1EA. It is the current home of chef Jeremy Chan’s restaurant, which the MICHELIN Guide lists as a creative dining room and identifies as one of London’s more iconic reservations. The restaurant operates with its own booking system and directs guests to contact it directly for tables. The kitchen builds its menus around British micro-seasonality and a spice-led approach. The restaurant states that it uses slowly grown vegetables, sustainable line-caught fish and aged native beef, with a global spice collection forming the foundation of the cooking. The MICHELIN Guide likewise describes Chan’s tasting menu as combining high-quality organic produce from the British Isles with global spices, with dishes such as aged turbot with egusi miso, suya with creamed peas and smoked jollof rice. Dining is centred on tasting menus rather than à la carte. Ikoyi says its full tasting menu is served for dinner from Monday to Friday and for lunch from Wednesday to Friday, alongside a shorter menu. The dining room accommodates tables for two to four guests, while a separate private dining area seats up to six. Exclusive hire is also offered for a bespoke restaurant experience that combines food, drinks and service. The overall experience is that of a tightly run contemporary restaurant, designed for small groups and private occasions rather than a casual all-day room. Its location in the Strand places it within easy reach of central London’s theatre and business districts, but the emphasis inside remains on a focused, ingredient-led tasting format and carefully controlled reservations. The result is a polished fine-dining setting with a clear culinary identity rooted in spice, produce and precision.
Khufu’s
Giza, Egypt
Khufu’s is a restaurant on the Giza Plateau in Nazlet El-Semman, Al Haram, Giza, with its official address placing it within the plateau setting rather than in a separate hotel or retail development. The restaurant’s own material ties the experience closely to its location, presenting the site as central to its identity. It describes a concept shaped by Egyptian dining heritage and by the particular character of its surroundings, making the setting an essential part of how the restaurant is introduced to guests. The menu information supplied on the restaurant’s official site shows dedicated breakfast, lunch and beverages sections. Among the breakfast dishes, the breakfast platter brings together fava beans, falafel, eggs, smoked eggplant, fries seasoned with street spices, homemade marmalade and cottage cheese, served with bread. These details indicate a menu that draws on familiar Egyptian staples and recognisable combinations, with a format that moves from morning dishes into later daytime dining rather than presenting only a single meal period. Arrival is organised around the access arrangements for the wider Giza Plateau. The reservations information states that entry to the plateau is through the Fayoum Gate entrance, and that guests need a Giza Plateau entry ticket before continuing. From the Visitor Center, a shuttle bus takes diners directly to Khufu’s. The same page notes that there is no formal dress code, while asking guests to maintain respectful behaviour, keep noise low and move steadily in keeping with the nature of the setting. Taken together, the official pages present Khufu’s as a destination restaurant whose identity is inseparable from its position on the plateau. Its guest information emphasises managed access and conduct suited to the location, while the menu details point to breakfast dishes built around bread, beans, eggs, dairy and vegetable preparations. Children are welcome, so the restaurant is not limited to adult parties alone. The overall picture is of a place defined by location, structured arrival and food rooted in Egyptian dining references.
Shiro Lagos
Nigeria
Shiro Lagos offers pan-Asian dining at its Oniru address, with Japanese and Chinese cooking among the principal influences. Sushi forms a substantial part of the menu alongside dim sum and wok-prepared dishes. The restaurant's design draws on Asian visual references, with large sculptures contributing to a distinctive dining room. The setting gives the venue a strong identity within Lagos's restaurant scene. The broad menu allows a meal to move between sushi, smaller dishes and cooked preparations, making it possible for a table to explore several parts of the offering. Sunday brunch provides another format for visiting the restaurant.
Yod Abyssinia
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Yod Abyssinia is a restaurant in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
Chishuru
London, UK
Chishuru is a modern West African restaurant in Fitzrovia, at 3 Great Titchfield Street, London W1W 8AX. Founded by Adejoké ‘Joké’ Bakare, it takes its name from a Hausa phrase meaning ‘eat silently’, and the business presents itself as a contemporary expression of West African cooking in central London. Its current home opened in September 2023, following an earlier Brixton residency that helped establish the restaurant before the move north of the river. The kitchen serves set menus only, with distinct lunch, dinner and pre-theatre formats. Chishuru says lunch is designed to be served within an hour where needed, while dinner offers a fuller experience and the pre-theatre option provides a shorter alternative. The restaurant also publishes detailed dietary guidance, noting that some requirements cannot be accommodated. Ingredients and flavours include uziza pepper, uda, aidan fruit and daddawa, with the team prepared to explain them to guests. Drinks are treated with the same attention as the food. The wine list focuses on small French producers, while cocktails are created in-house and may use West African ingredients where possible. Bottled beers from Eko Brewery and Ògógóró from Lagos are also listed. For larger parties, Chishuru offers group bookings and exclusive hire, including a ground-floor 18-seat arrangement, making the dining room suitable for private gatherings as well as regular service. The interior uses rough plaster, wood grains, pigmented cement, rich colour and bespoke lighting, creating a warm, textured room for contemporary dining. Practical arrangements are straightforward: the restaurant accepts card payments only, has no phone number and no bar area for waiting. Children are welcome, though there is no children’s menu. Wheelchair users should note that the toilets are in the basement with no lift, so advance contact is needed for access planning.
Tatiana
New York, USA
Tatiana is a restaurant in New York, set inside David Geffen Hall at 10 Lincoln Center Plaza on the Upper West Side. The official site presents it as Chef Kwame Onwuachi’s New York concept, with a story shaped by his upbringing in the Bronx and the former San Juan Hill neighbourhood. Its position within Lincoln Center gives it a cultural, city-centre context rather than a street-front dining room. The food menu is organised into small share and large share sections, with desserts listed separately. Current dishes include fluke crudo, egusi tortellini with Dungeness crab, curried goat patties, crab and oxtail patties, braised oxtail, fried branzino, shawarma roasted chicken and short rib pastrami suya. That mix points to Caribbean and West African influences alongside references to wider New York food cultures. The drinks list is similarly broad, with cocktails such as the LC Negroni, POG Nutcracker, The Spicy Marg, Smoke Break and Tatiana Sidecar, plus boozy jellies, wines and non-alcoholic options. The menu also features desserts including Bodega Special, Golden Rum Cake, Honey Bun and Icebox Cake, suggesting a format that can support both a full meal and a shorter visit centred on drinks and sweets. Tatiana operates for dinner Tuesday to Saturday from 5:00 pm to 10:00 pm and is closed on Sunday and Monday. The website offers reservations and private events enquiries, and the overall presentation is polished and contemporary, with the restaurant’s identity tied closely to its Lincoln Center location and to Onwuachi’s personal culinary background rather than to a generic neighbourhood brasserie model.
Wolfgat
Paternoster, South Africa
Wolfgat is a restaurant at 10 Sampson Street in Paternoster, on South Africa’s West Coast. It describes itself as a Strandveld eatery and serves lunch and dinner by appointment only, with bookings managed online or by email. The setting is closely tied to the village itself, and the business identifies its location plainly rather than as a hotel or multi-venue site. The kitchen is built around a seven-course seasonal tasting menu that draws on indigenous coastal ingredients. The restaurant says the dishes feature sustainable seafood, local fish and shellfish, and, in season, lamb or venison, alongside wild herbs, seaweeds from local rock pools and produce from the garden. An optional vegetarian tasting menu is available only if arranged in advance, while vegan menus are not offered. Wolfgat keeps the operation deliberately small, booking 20 diners per sitting. Lunch is served from Wednesday to Saturday and at midday on Sundays, while dinner is offered on Friday and Saturday evenings. The restaurant states that serious allergies may be discussed in advance, but menu changes cannot be made on the day, and infants and children under 16 are not accommodated. The experience is therefore one of tightly controlled, coastal dining rather than a broad à la carte restaurant. The official material emphasises the seasonal rhythm of the surrounding landscape, with some ingredients prepared over several weeks and others gathered on the day for the exact number of reservations received. The result is a focused meal rooted in local produce and in the character of Paternoster’s shoreline.
The Safari Room – Hemingways
Nairobi, Kenya
The Safari Room – Hemingways is a restaurant in Nairobi, Kenya.