Scenes from London’s terrific African food scene.
Photographer: Evan Ortiz/Bloomberg; Francis Augusto for Bloomberg Pursuits
There Has Never Been a Better Time to Eat African Food in London
From casual to luxurious, restaurants highlighting cuisines from West Africa and South Africa have taken the city by storm.
African cuisine is not a new phenomenon in London. West African take-out shops have been part of the fabric of local high streets for decades. They’ve been the place for dressed-up families or groups of friends to go for meals after church on Sunday or on the way home from a hair salon. They’ve simultaneously been a gathering spot, a gossip hub, and a reminder of home cooking for London's burgeoning African population.
The places have traditionally ranged from fast-food restaurants that offer prepackaged rice and meat or places with long tables for sit-down service specializing in the kind of stews you eat with your hands using balls of doughy fufu, or yuca. The portions are generous, but the experience was insular, and the food quality wasn’t always high enough to attract a wider clientele.