African gastronomy seen from 3 countries. Two in Africa and one outside.
African gastronomy has captured the world's attention: What do Africans eat? Is it delicious, is it healthy? Is there a big difference from south to north? The answer is yes. We're on a mini culinary journey right here, so get ready to enjoy the best of African food, offering unique flavors from all over the continent. We have several articles about food from Africa and many more about the continent as such.
For the traveler who uses the table as a reason to move, a african gourmet trip anything but a lesson from a distance. It's about sitting down. And the tables worth flying for have one thing in common: they're about the continent as it actually tastes – not about the ruler lines that European colonial powers drew across Africa at a table in Berlin in 1884. The kitchen has never followed those lines. It followed the rivers, the markets and the people. Here are three places where you can taste the difference.
This is not just a journey; it is a journey into the heart of African gastronomy, where every bite tells a story.
Addis Ababa – the fine cuisine of a country without a colonial past characterized by African gastronomy
Ethiopia is the only country in Africa that was never colonized. The Italian occupation in the 1930s lasted five years and settled in the espresso machines, not the kitchen. As a result, Addis Ababa tastes like something most African capitals had to reinvent: a cuisine that has been allowed to develop in one piece.
With a focus on African gastronomy, Ethiopia offers an experience that is both authentic and unique.
The cornerstone is injera – the large, sour teff pancake that is at once plate, cutlery and bread – covered with wat, the slow-cooked stews where berbere and the spicy butter niter kibbeh do the work. At places like Yod Abyssinia and Kategna, it is served with the obviousness you only find where a dish has never been remade to please tourists.
But it’s the coffee that makes Addis a destination for foodies. Ethiopia is the birthplace of Arabica coffee, and the Ethiopian coffee ceremony – where the beans are roasted, ground and brewed in front of you over the course of a little over an hour – is one of the most beautiful acts of eating you can experience. A full dinner with injera, wat and ceremony rarely costs more than DKK 150-250 per person. Ethiopia is not an expensive country to eat well in. The hard part is getting to the table – not paying for it.
Ethiopian food is a perfect example of how African gastronomy can bring cultures together.
Lisbon – where Africa and Europe meet on the plate
In Lisbon, European and African gastronomy meet in a symphony of flavors and aromas that you should not miss.
You don't have to fly to Africa to get started. Lisbon is the city where the Portuguese Empire came home and settled in the kitchens. In neighborhoods like Mouraria and Intendente are some of Europe's most overlooked African restaurants - Mozambican, Angolan and Cape Verdean places, run by families who brought the food with them.
Winetalk.dk, international food and the wines to go with it
At the Mozambican classic Cantinho do Aziz in Mouraria, piri-piri is not a sauce from a supermarket, but the backbone of the house: shrimp and chicken grilled with chili, garlic and oil according to a recipe that traveled from Maputo to Lisbon. Angolan moamba de galinha – chicken in palm oil and okra – and Cape Verdean cachupa. The slow corn and bean stew, can be found all over the city if you know where to look. A meal typically costs 150-300 kr. per person, and you drink Portuguese with it: the Portuguese wines from Alentejo and Douro go surprisingly well with the African chili.
Lisbon is also an easy entry point for a Nordic traveler – a three and a half hour direct flight from Copenhagen, and you can taste the meeting of three continents without leaving Europe.
Cape Town – where African cuisine and African gastronomy flourish
If Addis is authenticity and Lisbon is heritage, Cape Town is ambition. Here, a generation of South African chefs have stopped imitating European gastronomy and started using their own landscape as a pantry – fynbos, seaweed, West Coast fish and native plants most Europeans have never heard of.
Kobus van der Merwe has gone the furthest. At Wolfgat, a small stone hut in the fishing village of Paternoster an hour and a half north of Cape Town, he serves only what can be gathered within a few kilometers – beach herbs, mussels, seaweed – in a cuisine he calls strandveldkos. In 2019, Wolfgat was named the world’s best restaurant at the first World Restaurant Awards in Paris, without a single imported ingredient. A tasting menu costs around DKK 1.200-1.600 – a fraction of what a similar experience would cost in Copenhagen or Paris.
In Cape Town itself, chefs like Peter Tempelhoff at FYN carry the same idea forward, and at the classic La Colombe, top-level technique meets an African foundation rather than a French one. This is where the idea of African gastronomy stops being a subject and becomes a tool. And because South Africa is a trip that you plan over several days anyway, it makes sense to add a couple of days of safari in Kruger – predators in the morning, tasting menu in the evening.
Cape Town is a testament to how African gastronomy can revolutionize the culinary scene.
How to do an African gourmet trip from the North
The three cities can be done separately or linked together, but they each have their own rhythm:
- Cape Town – from Copenhagen typically via Doha, Istanbul or Amsterdam in 14-16 hours. The best time is the southern summer, November to March, when the west coast is accessible and the wine country is in full bloom.
- Addis Ababa – Ethiopian Airlines flies directly from Stockholm; from Copenhagen it goes via Istanbul or Frankfurt. The dry season from October to March is the pleasant time to travel.
- Lisbon – three and a half hours direct flight from Copenhagen all year round. Spring and autumn are the most beautiful; summer is hot and full.
Prices range widely: Ethiopia is cheap to eat in, but more expensive to fly to; Lisbon is the affordable weekend getaway; Cape Town offers the most expensive airfare, but the cheapest fine dining in the world. For a broader framework for the trip, you can read about our universe of food and wine and about Africa as a whole.
To get the full picture of African gastronomy, it is important to visit these three destinations.
Addis Ababa, Lisbon, Cape Town – three tables that each make the cuisine of an entire continent a reason to travel.
No matter where you travel in Africa, the delicious and unique African cuisine will always be a central part of the experience.
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