Reine Margarita — Italian, Dakar
Reine Margarita is a charming Italian eatery with a menu entirely in Italian — a statement of culinary principle in a city where most restaurants hedge their identity toward the widest possible tourist appeal. The menu showcases some of the finest pizzas and pastas in Dakar, prepared with the conviction of a kitchen that regards the Italian food tradition as a practice rather than a reference.
The pizzas at Reine Margarita are Neapolitan in inspiration: wood-fired, blistered, with toppings of genuine quality rather than the compromised versions that restaurant pizza outside Italy usually delivers. The pasta programme covers the Italian regional tradition with an honesty that makes Dakar unexpectedly Italian for the duration of the meal.
The wine list is Italian and well-chosen: the Sicilian and southern Italian reds that pair best with the pizza tradition, the northern whites that the pasta demands, and the prosecco that marks the transition between aperitivo and dining.
Reine Margarita is the restaurant that Dakar’s Italian community — and the wider international community that has discovered it — regards as the most authentic expression of Italian cooking available in West Africa. The menu in Italian is the promise; the food is the proof.
Best Occasion: Birthday
Exceptional Italian pizza and pasta, an entirely Italian menu, and the warmth of a restaurant that takes both the tradition and its guests seriously: Reine Margarita provides a birthday dinner that is simultaneously simple and genuinely accomplished.
Best Occasion: Team Dinner
The shared-plates format of Italian dining — pizzas passed around the table, pasta shared from the serving bowl — makes Reine Margarita a naturally convivial team dinner address in Dakar.