Best West African Restaurants Around the World

The best-scored west african place in each of 8 cities.

Regional variations

Senegal and the western Sahel

Thieboudienne (the ancestor of jollof rice, with broken rice, fish, and tomato), yassa (chicken or fish with mustard-onion-lemon sauce), mafe (peanut stew), and a strong fish-and-rice coastal tradition. The Senegalese kitchen is widely considered the most refined in the region.

Nigeria

Jollof rice (the most internationally visible Nigerian dish), egusi soup (melon-seed stew with goat or beef and leafy greens), pounded yam with vegetable soup, suya (spiced grilled meat), and the strongest pepper soup tradition. The largest food economy in the region.

Ghana

Ghana jollof (often considered the rival to Nigeria's), waakye (rice and beans with stew, the national breakfast), kelewele (spiced fried plantain), fufu with peanut soup or light soup, banku (fermented corn dumpling) with tilapia and pepper sauce.

Côte d'Ivoire

Attiéké (fermented cassava couscous, the national starch), kedjenou (slow-cooked chicken or guinea fowl in a sealed pot), aloko (fried plantain). French-Ivorian colonial overlay still visible in the bistro scene.

Cameroon, Benin, Togo

Ndolé (bitter-leaf stew with shrimp and peanut, Cameroon's national dish), poulet DG (chicken with plantain), and a transition zone toward Central African flavors.

Defining west african dishes

Jollof rice

Tomato-and-onion-stewed long-grain rice, cooked with stock, scotch bonnet, bay leaf, thyme, and curry powder until the bottom develops a smoky toasted layer (the prized 'party jollof' crust). The contested national dish of Nigeria, Ghana, and Senegal.

Thieboudienne

The Senegalese original from which jollof descends: broken rice with fish (usually grouper or thiof), tomato, onion, cabbage, carrot, cassava, and tamarind, cooked together in one pot. UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage.

Egusi soup

Nigerian stew of ground melon seeds with goat or beef, leafy greens (ugu, bitterleaf, spinach), palm oil, and stockfish. Thick, deep, served with pounded yam or fufu for scooping.

Mafe

Peanut stew with lamb, beef, or chicken, cooked with tomato, onion, scotch bonnet, and vegetables. Senegalese and Malian origin; the West African dish that traveled most widely into Caribbean and American cooking.

Yassa

Chicken (yassa poulet) or fish (yassa poisson) marinated in lemon, mustard, and a lot of caramelized onion, then braised or grilled. Senegalese, especially Casamance.

Suya

Nigerian and Hausa grilled spiced meat: beef or chicken skewered, coated in yaji (the dry rub of ground peanut, ginger, chile, and spices), and grilled over wood. The defining West African street food.

Fufu

Pounded starch dumpling, made from cassava, plantain, yam, or a combination. Stretchy, smooth, eaten by hand with stew, used to scoop. Each country has its own preferred composition.

Waakye

Ghanaian rice and beans cooked together with dried sorghum leaves (giving the pink-brown color), served with stew, gari (cassava flake), shito (black pepper sauce), boiled egg, fried plantain, and spaghetti. The national breakfast and street meal.

Attiéké

Fermented cassava couscous from Côte d'Ivoire, similar in texture to fine-grained semolina couscous but with a slight tang. Served as the carbohydrate base for grilled fish or chicken.

Pepper soup

Light, spicy broth with goat, fish, or catfish, scented with West African spices (calabash nutmeg, grains of paradise, scent leaves). The hangover cure and post-childbirth recovery soup.

Kelewele

Ghanaian fried plantain cubes spiced with ginger, chile, and warm spices. Street snack and side dish.

Ndolé

Cameroon's national dish: bitterleaf stew with peanut, shrimp or beef, and palm oil. Bitter, rich, deep, eaten with plantain or rice.

How to order

A West African restaurant meal is built around the starch-and-stew pair. Pick your starch first (jollof, fufu, pounded yam, waakye, attiéké, banku), then pick the stew or protein (egusi, peanut, yassa, suya, grilled tilapia, goat pepper soup). Sides are typically fried plantain, kelewele, or a fresh salad. Suya is a snack or appetizer course, eaten with raw onion and tomato. Wash hands before fufu, as it is eaten by hand: pinch off a piece, dip in stew, swallow without chewing (chewing the fufu changes the texture in a way locals dislike).

The rookie mistakes: under-ordering stew (a small portion of stew with a large fufu is the local proportion), expecting jollof to taste like Mexican rice (the smoke-flavor of party jollof is the dish, not a defect), being put off by the slimy texture of okra-based stews (it is intentional), and skipping suya as a starter (it is one of the great street meats in the world).

What to drink with it

Palm wine, the fermented sap of the oil palm or raffia palm, is the traditional West African alcohol, served fresh and cloudy. Bissap (hibiscus drink, often spiked with mint or ginger), ginger beer (the West African version is sharper than Caribbean), tamarind drink, baobab juice (bouye), and zobo are the universal non-alcoholic options. Imported lager (Star in Ghana, Castle in southern Africa, Gulder and Star in Nigeria) is widely drunk with food. With suya, an ice-cold beer is the canonical pairing. With pepper soup, the heat does the work, and water is the companion.

Where to eat it

Lagos and Accra are the great urban food scenes, with the deepest restaurant cultures in the region. Dakar for Senegalese refinement and the best thieboudienne. Abidjan for French-Ivorian fusion and attiéké. Outside the region, London is the best West African food city in the world, with serious Nigerian, Ghanaian, and Senegalese restaurants (Chuku's, Akoko, Ikoyi). Houston and Atlanta have strong Nigerian-Ghanaian diaspora scenes; Paris and Brussels for francophone West African; New York for Senegalese (Le Grand Dakar legacy, Pierre Thiam projects). Most of the world's great West African cooking is still unrepresented internationally.

A short history

West African cuisine descends from the agricultural civilizations of the Sahel and the Atlantic coast, with yam, sorghum, millet, and palm oil cultivation going back millennia. The trans-Atlantic slave trade (16th to 19th century) carried West African cooking techniques (rice cultivation, okra, black-eyed pea, palm oil, gumbo grammar) to the Americas, where they shaped the cuisines of Brazil, the Caribbean, Louisiana, and the American South. Senegalese thieboudienne was added to the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage list in 2021.

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