Driftwood Club Restaurant — Kenyan / International, Malindi
Driftwood Club has operated on Malindi's beach since 1963, making it one of Kenya's oldest continuously operating beach establishments and one of the coast's most beloved institutions. The club format — open to day members and hotel guests — creates a social mix that distinguishes it from purely hotel dining.
The restaurant produces reliable international cooking with fresh Kenyan seafood and produce — grilled barracuda, prawn thermidor, Kenyan beef prepared in the style that sixty years of coastal-resort cooking has refined.
The bar is the club's soul: cold Tusker on draught, gin and tonics made with Kenyan gin, and the rum cocktails that the coastal heat demands. The bar has been producing excellent sundowners since Kennedy was president.
The beach in front of Driftwood is among Malindi's best — protected from the rougher surf by the reef, with white sand and the Indian Ocean's characteristic blue-green colour. The club's sunloungers and the restaurant's service combine to create the East African beach experience at its most civilised.
Best Occasion: Good for Closing Deals
The Driftwood Club's sixty-year history and member format create the kind of institutional authority that business conversations benefit from. Lunch on the beach terrace, cold Tusker, and seafood — the East African coastal deal format.
Best Occasion: Works for Impressing Clients
The colonial-era beach club with the best bar on the Kenyan coast. Clients who arrive at the Driftwood understand immediately that their host knows Malindi properly.