Luanda

Dining in Luanda — The Essential Guide

Africa’s Most Expensive City at Table

Luanda was for several years ranked as the most expensive city in the world for expatriates — a consequence of Angola’s oil wealth and the extraordinary logistics costs of supplying a city on the Atlantic coast of southern Africa. The restaurant scene that has developed in this context reflects both the wealth and the logistical creativity it demands: Italian fine dining with imported ingredients (Vitrúvio), Portuguese seafood of genuine quality (Pimm’s), and the contemporary fusion that the city’s new generation of chefs and restaurateurs are beginning to develop.

Angola’s Portuguese colonial history has shaped its food culture as deeply as any African country’s: the bacalhau, the wine culture, and the fish-and-seafood focus of the Luanda table all reflect five centuries of Portuguese influence. The Angolan ingredients that the country’s extraordinary biodiversity and the Benguela Current provide have been enriching this tradition for the same period.

The Benguela Current

The Benguela Current — the cold Atlantic upwelling that runs along the coasts of Namibia and Angola — is one of the world’s most productive fisheries, generating the extraordinary abundance of Atlantic seafood that defines Luanda’s finest restaurants. The current brings cold, nutrient-rich water from the Antarctic, producing crayfish, fish, and shellfish of remarkable quality that the Portuguese culinary tradition has been learning to appreciate and the Angolan kitchen has been incorporating since the first colonial landing.