Café restaurants in Africa
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Oasis Café
Set in a renovated 1930s building right in the centre of town, the Oasis is a good place to recover from the bustle of Luxor town, from the heat or from sightseeing. The dining rooms are cool with fans, high ceilings and old tiled floors, painted in soft colours with local artwork on the walls, and furnished with traditional-style furniture. With jazz softly playing, smoking and nonsmoking rooms, the New Yorker to read and friendly staff, this is the perfect place for lunch, to linger over a good morning latte or to spend the afternoon reading. The place is very Western, but in a nice way like your favourite cafe back home. The food is good too, with an extensive brunch…
reviewed
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Café 41
A beautifully designed bistro-style restaurant serving Mediterranean fare from an extensive menu (the great big meze platters are good value). There’s a large outdoor deck, and a hidden section that makes you forget you’re in a shopping village. Service is a little on the slow side though.
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Table Mountain Café
Hallelujah! Table Mountain finally gets the café it so deserves. This self-serve place offers tasty deli items and meals, compostable plates and containers, and good coffee. They also sell wine and beer so there’s no need to cart your bottle up the slopes to toast the view.
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Empire Café
The surfies’ favourite hang-out is a great place for a breakfast or lunch of well-made pasta dishes and salads. Local art exhibitions enliven the walls. Call to see if it’s open for dinner on Thursday and Friday, November to March.
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Kaldi's Coffee
While lawyers may eventually kibosh Kaldi's Starbucks-like sign, logo, interior, uniforms and menu, thirsty expats dropping around Br14 for fabulous frappuccinos will ensure Kaldi's contagious coffee lives on.
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Café de Rome
You want to mingle with Dakar's jet set? This is the place. So pretentious it borders on hilarious.
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Vida e Caffé
Considered by many the best coffee fix in town, with tasty snacks and beautiful people moving in and out all day. Come just after closing time (17:00) and score a free leftover muffin; they're huge.
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Sandbar
One of Camps Bay’s better-value options is this less self-consciously fashionable café with street tables, serving good sandwiches and light meals. They also serve cocktails.
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Café Restaurant de l'Institut
In the cool shade of the Institut Français' mighty fromager tree, this oasis of calm has an excellent range of simple meals, delicious desserts and great coffee.
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Nourish Lab Smoothy's
These refreshing drinks, a combination of fruit and soft yogurt, are practically addictive because of the oppressive heat. Also serves sandwich wraps and salads.
reviewed
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Singh Restaurant
The Sikh temple near the bus stands operates this small cafeteria restaurant, tipped by Mombasans in the know as one of the best places in town for vegetarians.
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Chicken Mac
Chicken Mac quickly serves up generous plates of rotisserie chicken, bowls of harira (soup) and other cheap, filling meals.
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Mombasa Coffee House
Take the opportunity to escape above Moi Ave for fresh coffee and snacks, or local meals away from the daily grind.
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Tomoca
Coffee is serious business at this old Italian Piazza café, where beans are roasted on-site.
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Boston Maquis
- Lomé, Togo
- Restaurants › Café
You can get good, cheap food at this friendly restaurant opposite Centre Culturel Français.
reviewed
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Cafés
The café tradition is one of the nicer things left behind in Maputo by the Portuguese, and the city's cafés have become somewhat of an institution. Most of the older ones have a staid feel to them, and the faded ambience and worn furnishings that you'd expect from places that have been around for decades, while the newer ones tend to be young and lively.
All serve a selection of tasty bolos (cakes) and light meals, plus café espresso and chá (tea), and make good spots for a break while walking around town.
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Tanta Waa Coffeeshop & Restaurant
This super-chilled and creatively clad mudbrick cafe at Cleopatra’s Bath is the perfect place for a cool drink or tasty meal in between splashes in the spring. The food here is surprisingly good, with a small selection of salads, pastas, meat dishes and fruit smoothies. The lasagne alone, which follows a genuine Italian recipe, is worth the trip out here. Slung with hammocks and with a background of funky tunes (it also occasionally holds evening parties), it’s easy to while away an entire day at this haven.
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Café-Restau Bruxelles
A laid-back little restaurant with outdoor seating and a neat interior, this is a lovely place to eat. It's run by amiable Alex, a Belgian citizen, and his Mauritanian wife. Expect savoury dishes that are well presented, including brochettes de poisson (fish kebabs), rump steak, a good range of crunchy salads and hearty omelettes. Make sure to leave room for the tasty pancakes. It's a bit far from the centre, on the road to Nouâdhibou, but it's well worth the taxi ride.
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Coffeehouses
There are plenty of outdoor places to enjoy a coffee, soft drink, mint tea or a sheesha (water pipe). Most popular in the evenings are the tables strewn around place des Martyrs in front of the Hôtel Sabra.
Just south of here near the intersection of ave Hamda Laaouani and ave de la République are two good coffeehouses: Café Belhadj and Café Amar.
Just north of the medina in front of Bab Tunis is the Café Les Soirées de L'Orient.
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Ahwa al-Hind
during summer the whole 20km length of the Corniche from Ras at-Tin to Montazah becomes one great strung-out ahwa (coffeehouse). You have to squeeze through a passageway almost blocked by clothes stalls to find this one in the central courtyard of the big, battered old building on the corner where Midan Orabi meets Midan Tahrir. It's scruffy, but the setting bristles with atmosphere and is the perfect place to while away a hot afternoon or lazy evening.
reviewed
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Coffee Roastery
The hip young things that flock here to listen to MTV blaring on the telly don't seem to mind that the English proverbs around the place make little sense. It's one of the more ritzy places in town, bedecked in dark-wood trim and with a food menu that could have been lifted from an English pub: burgers, steak and fries dominate the choices among token references to Egyptian fare. It also does great coffee, milk shakes and fresh juices.
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Bar Restaurant Amanar
Our favourite restaurant in Timbuktu, Amanar has a mellow atmosphere with a soundtrack of Malian blues (think Ali Farke Touré and Tinariwen), chilled and friendly waiters and a small and intimate garden. They do all the travellers' staples, but the soups are outstanding. Right outside the door stands the Flamme de la Paix monument and the Sahara. From Thursday to Saturday, they stay open late as a lively bar with a DJ from 22:30.
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Awalad Abdou
With only minor concessions made to hygiene, this uber budget place is nonetheless a smashing find. In two shakes of a lamb’s tail, these guys will whip up micro sandwiches with a scrumptious, meat-centric filling of your choice. Just point to what looks good and quaff it down while standing at the counter. It can be a challenge to find – there’s no sign, so look for a small shop with hanging cured meats, near Sharia Attareen.
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Cafe Anton
This somewhat pretentious spot, located in Hotel Schweizerhaus, serves up superb coffee, apfelstrüdel (apple strudel), kugelhopf (cake with nuts and raisins), mohnkuchen (poppy seed cake), linzertorte (cake flavoured with almond meal, lemon and spices, and spread with jam) and other European delights. The outdoor seating is inviting for afternoon snacks in the sun.
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Elite
Near the Cinema Metro, this is one of those Alexandrian time-warp affairs. Cut from the same cloth as an old US diner, it seems sealed in a 1950s bubble, now almost slipping back in time. The menu traverses from the oriental to the occidental and tries to cover everything in between, though it's best to stick to the simple things. The big, street-facing windows make it a great place for an afternoon beer.
reviewed