Restaurants in Nairobi
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Carnivore
Vegetarians, please look away now. This is hands down the most famous nyama choma restaurant in Kenya. At the entrance is a huge barbecue pit laden with real swords of beef, pork, lamb, chicken, camel, ostrich and crocodile. As long as the paper flag on your table is flying, waiters will keep bringing the meat, which is carved right at the table.
reviewed
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Bangkok Chinese Restaurant
The Bangkok has been in business for a number of years but was clearly named by someone with no grasp of geography, as there's virtually nothing Thai on the menu at all. If the disappointment gets too much you can always crack open a bottle of Moët.
reviewed
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Furusato Japanese Restaurant
Behind the Sarit Centre, this is a very stylish place with seductive set Japanese meals including sushi, teppanyaki and tempura. The sushi and sashimi here are delicious. Reservations are recommended.
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Trattoria
This long-running and very popular Italian joint could hold its head up in Melbourne or San Francisco, offering excellent pizza, pasta dishes, varied mains and a whole page of desserts.
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Siam Thai
This attractive restaurant has an extensive menu of actual Thai food (gasp!) and a very good reputation. Unga House can be reached from either Woodvale Grove or Muthithi Rd.
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Blue Nile Ethiopian Restaurant
One of those rare places with a character all its own, Blue Nile's quirky lounge couldn't be mistaken for anywhere else, painted with stories from Ethiopian mythology - if you've ordered one of the many goat dishes, it's best not to read the panels about poison until you've finished your meal! For the full communal African eating experience, order the seven-person doro wat (spicy traditional chicken stew) with a few glasses of tej (honey wine).
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Restaurant Akasaka
A wonderful Japanese restaurant next to the Sixeighty Hotel. It's always a little quiet, but this fits the stylish Japanese décor and the food is very authentic. There's even a tatami room (reserve in advance) where you can eat at traditional low tables. Akasaka runs the full gamut of Japanese cuisine including udon noodles, sushi sets, tempura, teriyaki and sukiyaki as well as great miso soup. Good-value set lunches are also available.
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Alan Bobbé's Bistro
The talented M Bobbé established this superb French bistro in 1962, and Nairobi gourmets and gourmands alike have been worshipping at his culinary altar ever since. Even reading the chatty handwritten menu is enough to send the palate into raptures. The interior, doused in red velvet, adds perfectly to the recherché ambience. Reservations and smart dress are encouraged, cigars and pipes are not. Look out for the poodle above Koinange St.
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Kengeles Bar & Restaurant
Run on the lines of a Western chain restaurant, Kengeles' impressively varied menu encompasses burgers, grills, Mexican, African, Indonesian, Asian and buffet options, and the open-air balcony is a fine place to dine. On a quiet night, though, the service can be truly lousy. The chain was rumoured to be in financial difficulties at time of writing, and had also seemingly fallen out of favour with Nairobi council.
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Kahawa
Kahawa has an unusual coastal theme - the counter even resembles a traditional dhow, complete with mast. The menu, however, is anything but old-fashioned, proffering an ever-changing cavalcade of unexpected specials to complement the grills and steaks, from frittata to a 'Mexican breakfast'. Speaking of breakfast, this is indeed a good spot to take the most important meal of the day.
reviewed
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Chic Joint
One of our favourite new bar-restaurant discoveries, chic might not be the first word that springs to mind but grills, stews and nyama by the kilo should never go out of fashion. Fresh fish is delivered daily and the tilapia is generally excellent. The patio seating is separated from Uhuru Hwy by a thick hedge, with some sizeable speakers providing music in the evening.
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Nyama Choma Place
This place is highly rated by Kenyans. There's a butchery where you select your meat and then it's tossed on the barbie - any day of the week you'll see clouds of delicious-smelling smoke rising from the restaurant. It's best to come in a group as meat is sold in the form of whole goat legs or complete racks of ribs. Chips or ugali are also available.
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Thorn Tree Café
For a lunch splurge in an upmarket environment, head for the Stanley's legendary cafe. It's an oasis of civilization amid the madness of the streets and the food, while overpriced, caters to most tastes. Although it still serves as a popular meeting place for travellers, the once famous noticeboard has been reduced to a shadow of its former self.
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Tamarind Restaurant
Kenya's most prestigious restaurant chain runs Nairobi's best seafood restaurant. The splendid menu offers all manner of exotic flavours, and the lavish dining room is laid out in a sumptuous modern Arabic-Moorish style. Smart dress is expected and you'll need to budget for the full works, particularly if you want wine or cocktails and lobster.
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Seasons Restaurant
Whatever the season, the cafeteria vats here always brim with cheap Kenyan and Western favourites. The Nairobi Cinema outlet has a popular bar and beer garden, and there are a couple of similar branches around the centre. You can bring in your own booze, food or miraa (twigs and shoots chewed as a stimulant) for a 'cockage' fee.
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Malindi Dishes
A great little Swahili canteen. As the name suggests, this place serves great food from the coast, including pilau (curried rice with meat), biryanis and coconut fish, with side dishes such as ugali, naan bread and rice. You'll get a grand feed here, but it's a Muslim place, so it's closed for prayer at lunchtime on Friday.
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Phoenician Restaurant
This new garden restaurant, tucked away behind the Sarit Centre, may well be the first Lebanese restaurant in Kenya. We've heard mixed reports of the food, but there's plenty for veggies and with more starters than main courses, assembling your own mixed mezze offers plenty of scope for a Middle East feast. Live music on Friday.
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Plaza Café
The Minar chain used to have several branches in the city centre, but now there's just this one, set in the Plaza's basement courtyard. It specialises in mughlai dishes but also does standard breakfasts and African dishes, plus good buffet lunches and plenty of vegetarian options.
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Tropez
A handy modern restaurant offering fast grills, curries, chicken and the like. The lunchtime buffet is top value, and the breakfast isn't bad either. There's another branch of the same chain, with sports bar, at Zeep (Norwich Union Towers, Mama Ngina St).
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FK Restaurant
This immaculate daytime cafeteria at the rear of an office block makes an appealing alternative to the grubbier canteens around it; there's an interior gallery area if you like to look down on your fellow diners. The special breakfast is good value.
reviewed
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Beneve Coffee House
A small self-service chop shop that has locals queuing outside in the mornings waiting for it to open. Food ranges from stews to curries, fish and chips, samosas, pasties and a host of other choices, all at low, low prices.
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Chowpaty Pure Vegetarian Restaurant
A great Indian vegetarian restaurant. The menu is as much a manifesto as a food list, but the food is excellent and includes lots of South Indian dishes such as dhosa (lentil pancakes stuffed with vegetable curry).
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Supreme Restaurant
This place offers excellent Punjabi vegetarian thalis (plate meals) consisting of various curries, rice, dhal, bhajia (vegetables fried in lentil flour) and chapatis. It also has superb fruit juices.
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Addis Ababa Restaurant
Unlike the Ethiopian capital itself, this place is easily missed as it's tucked away up some stairs in an otherwise unremarkable block. Locate it and you'll also find good authentic food and occasional live music.
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Café 21
More of a cafeteria than a purebreed coffeehouse, the neat little 21 does both full meals and snacks or 'bitings'. Sandwiches, grills, pasta and lamb chops all feature, and there's a lunch buffet.
reviewed