The best African restaurants in Melbourne right now

On Footscray’s Irving Street strip, you'll find all-day Ethiopian café Konjo Café serving up single-origin Ethiopian coffee and enormous platters of sumptuous fare. Split peas, red lentils, green lentils, cabbage and beetroot are cooked down individually with berbere and dotted on large platters of Ethiopia's traditional spongy flatbread injera in the beyeinatu combo, an Ethiopian national dish, while those who prefer rice to bread are catered to with the rice beef tibs, which sees beef strips sauteed in onion, garlic, jalapenos and berbere, and the rice kitfo, where finely chopped raw beef is seasoned with mitmita (a chilli spice blend) and kibbeh (Ethiopian spiced clarified butter). Coffee is brewed and served traditionally out of an earthenware pot called jebana and the best part is: Konjo does a breakfast menu too, featuring crusty bread alongside ful (stewed broad beans), silts (scrambled spiced eggs) and enkulal be sega (scrambled eggs plus sauteed beef). 

One of the oldest Ethiopian institutions in Melbourne, Café Lalibela has been sating the appetites of Footscray residents since 1998. Ethiopian beverages are as much a focus as the food – in 2003, the diner imported three brands of Ethiopian beers for the first time to Australia, which have since proven highly popular, and offers traditional hand-roasted Ethiopian coffee as well as hot yekemem shai, black tea steeped in cinnamon, cardamom and cloves. Vegetarians are as well-catered for as omnivores – take your pick between braised meat and vegetable stews (wots) and Ethiopian staples like kitfo and beyeinatu. Locals in the know opt for the dulet, a sumptuous stir-fry of minced lamb backstrap, liver and tripe, typically a weekend-only special. 

Named after the highest mountain in Ethiopia, Ras Dashen is owned by couple Alemitu Alemeo and Wondi Aberra, who are, in the same vein, always striving to be the best. Many in Footscray and its neighbouring suburbs would agree Ras Dashen is just that. Since opening in 2011 on Nicholson Street and moving to its current site in 2017, Ras Dashen has charmed locals with its selection of wots with either beef, chicken, lamb, chickpeas or split red lentils, different iterations of injera sourced from a local bakery (choose between one that has white sorghum and another that has brown sorghum), and coffee roasted from green Ethiopian beans. It’s a beautifully warm and cosy restaurant, where you’re best off whiling away the hours alongside a big group of friends – the more people to share in on the food, the better. 

For more than 30 years, Nyala has flown the flag for African food in Melbourne and for a long time, it was one of the few African restaurants in Melbourne. As a result, perhaps, it represents a cross-section of the continent’s best offerings rather than homing in on regional specificities. You’ll find futari, a flavourful coconut milk-based cabbage, potato and carrot stew originating in Tanzania; domeda, a hearty Gambian peanut stew with beef; and doro tibs, a popular Ethiopian dish where cubed chicken is sauteed with onions, capsicum and berbere, a fiery and aromatic all-purpose seasoning blend. Dishes are served alongside rice, couscous and injera. Around since 1987, Nyala isn’t going anywhere. 

With a longevity that doesn’t extend as far back as Nyala’s and Café Lalibela’s but is still significant – The Abyssinian opened in 2007 – this much-loved Racecourse Road eatery serves up a range of Ethiopian dishes. Expect dorho zighini, a famed East African chicken casserole; the mild stew of lamb aletcha; and shiro, a chickpea stew where finely ground, spiced pulses are simmered with olive oil and garlic. Order the mixed platter feast to get a chef's choice of dishes and a small salad served on a giant serve of delightfully spongy injera. Cutlery isn’t encouraged, so use your hands for the most optimal eating experience. 

A departure from Melbourne African forebears that specialised in East African food, Edziban in Kensington is all about West African fare, specifically that of Ghana, Togo, Benin and Nigeria. The expansive menu has plenty of contextual information to help diners situate the provenance of what they’re eating. To start you off, the green pepper sauce that accompanies the spring rolls is the stuff of legend, and for something heftier, try the kyinkyinga platter of beef, cassava chips and fried sweet plantains. Highlights include one of West Africa’s most famous dishes, okro (okra) stew with tiger prawns, crabs and fish – best paired with pounded yam or plantain fufu (a mashed, dough-like starch) – and nkate nkwan, a nutty, savoury and mildly spicy Ghanaian peanut soup. Drinks and desserts aren’t an afterthought here – the Atia Donko cocktail steeped in African bitters and house-infused hibiscus juice is our pick of the drinks menu, and make sure you save room for bofrot i.e. Ghanaian doughnuts.

Hidden in the backstreets of Brunswick lies a sunny orange shipping container where Ashley Vola – of Plate of Origin fame – serves up a hearty selection of Cameroonian food. The cuisine is a melting pot of flavours from the north, west and centre of Africa, with a dash of Arabic, English and French influences. Her famed jollof rice is plated alongside fried plantains, cassava chips and mouthwatering barbecued meats ranging from roast chicken to suya (smoked, spiced meat skewers of Nigerian provenance). But the crowning glory of Vola’s menu, particularly if you’re in a group, is the whole borning fish marinated in a nutty seed called njansang and Cameroonian nutmeg before being grilled on a charcoal barbecue. Vola heats up in summer when it hosts markets and music nights, so be sure to pop in for the festive vibes. 

Thankfully for Brunswick residents hankering for Ethiopian food, there’s Ge’ez, saving them a trip to the west. Simply decorated yet cosy, Ge’ez is unassuming to those who pass it unknowingly, but its confines are perennially packed. The menu boasts a variety of wots – ye-dinch (potato), ye-misir (split lentils), ye-duba (pumpkin), ye’tikil gomen (cabbage roast) among them – alongside variations of tibs (sauteed beef and lamb in berbere). Everything comes with injera or rice or save yourself from the tyranny of choice by ordering either the vegetarian, vegan or meat combo platter. 

The Amharic word ‘mesob’ means ‘breadbasket’ and while it’s a colourful vessel typically used to store injera, its round shape is also a stand-in for communal eating – exactly what warm and inviting Northcote institution Mesob is all about. Owners Naz Mahari and Dawit Kebede have made it easy for decision-phobic diners with herbivore, omnivore and negus (combo of both) platters, but there’s also the ala carte menu to choose from with the likes of doro wot (a mildly spiced chicken stew known as the national dish of Ethiopia and notable for having a whole hard-boiled egg) and the comfort food of shiro, a comfort food where chickpea flour is roasted and simmered with kibbeh (akin to Ethiopian ghee), berbere and tomatoes. Coeliacs will be pleased to know the injera at Mesob is fermented from only teff flour, which is gluten-free. 

Warmly lit and festooned with intricate wall hangings, Little Africa has the feel of a lived-in house. Nestled in a Victorian terrace, the reality isn’t far removed but take note that it’s a tiny space, so be sure to make a booking. Little Africa specialises in Ethiopian fare, and most of their produce is sourced fresh from Queen Victoria Market just a stone’s throw away. There’s an ala carte menu but for ease of ordering, there’s a banquet option where you get an assortment of meat and vegetarian dishes (or just the latter if you’re a plant eater) spooned over a large sphere of injera. You can expect asa zighini (cubed fish cooked in berbere), aletcha (mixed vegetables seasoned in spices and garlic) and fool (fava beans mashed in with ghee, lemon and cumin).

There are restaurants in Melbourne that offer Nigerian dishes, but Adonai is the only exclusively Nigerian restaurant in town – you’ll find it beneath a block of social housing flats in Carlton. Take your pick from dishes like the poundo yam with egusi (boiled white yam with ground melon seeds), amala with ewedu (a yam-based starchy accompaniment with a jute leaf soup) and moin moin (a Yoruba steamed bean pudding made from blended beans, red capsicum, onions and spices). Adonai owner Funmi Ewedairo has been cooking since she was 12, and is hoping to familiarise people with the food of her people. 

Unlike the extensive menus of other East African restaurants in Melbourne, Flemington stalwart New Somali Kitchen’s is short and sweet with none of the usual suspects if your exposure to African food is limited to that of Ethiopia’s. There’s basta – that’s Somali for ‘pasta’ – cooked with a tomato sauce steeped in the spices of cumin, turmeric and ginger and served with your choice of meat. Or the NSK Classic – tender lamb cooked in Somali herbs and spices accompanied by rice (the Somali carb of choice) and braised vegetables. All mains come with the option of a Somali-style falafel called bajeya, which is made from ground black-eyed peas, and no Somali meal is considered complete without a banana eaten alongside – there are unpeeled bananas on each table for this very reason.

Also serving up fantastic Somali fare is Kensington’s Zamzam Kitchen, where Uncle Abdi has curated a menu with Italian and South Asian influences. You can order either rice or pasta with lamb shank, lamb shoulder, barramundi, salmon or suqaar (a beloved Somali dish where cubed meat – any meat – is simmered with an assortment of vegetables, cumin and turmeric). The lamb shank comes particularly highly rated. The Indian section of the menu is underlined by the option to order chapati, a traditional South Asian unleavened flatbread. As is Somali tradition, meals are preceded by a small bowl of spiced broth and completed with a sweet cup of ginger tea. 

The Ama’s Delight food truck used to neighbour Vola Foods, but it’s since moved to a convivial, permanent outpost in Ascot Vale – bringing its Ghanaian food to a new audience. Ama’s Feast can feed three people with its three different kinds of rice, two different kinds of suya, chicken wings, cassava chips and fried plantain. But if you decide to order off the menu, don’t go past the jollof rice bathed in a tomato stew, waakye (a classic Ghanaian dish of cooked rice and beans), fufu with a light goat soup, and shitoloo with kenkey (fish steaks marinated in West African spices served with a fermented corn dough ball). 

For Ghanaian food south of the river, look no further than Akwaaba. Translating to mean ‘welcome’ in the Twi language of Ghana’s Akan people, Akwaaba exemplifies the camaraderie and hospitality of its name. There’s live African jazz on Thursdays and Saturdays, but no matter which day of the week, Akwaaba’s menu speaks for its own. Mouthwatering entrees ranging from steamed calamari brochettes and semolina-dusted spiced prawns segue into a mains menu that includes the likes of a suya platter and a medley of soups and stews – from kontomire (cocoyam leaves stew) to a peanut butter soup with smoked meat and mushrooms. Fufu is the most common accompaniment to the gravy-rich dishes, but waakye, jollof, fried cassava and plantains are also carby accompaniment options. There’s no alcohol served, though you’re welcome to BYO, and save room for dessert – the bofrot is especially popular. 

Pronounced zuu-ya, a stand-in for the dish suya, Zuya specialises in West African barbecue. With a location in Grazeland and another in Caroline Springs, Zuya marinates all its meat in a housemade, family heirloom spice rub for 48 hours before allowing it the heat treatment of a wood-fired grill for signature smokiness. Whether you choose the beef, chicken or lamb suya, it’s best washed down with a side of coconut fried rice or sweet fried plantains and an icy cold beverage. 

It doesn’t have permanent digs – yet – but pop-up Malewa City is bringing Congolese food to Glass Merchants in Balaclava. Visit for traditional Congolese dishes like makoso (pig trotters), tshaka madesu (Congolese beans and cassava leaves stew) and fumbwa (Congolese wild spinach stew) with fufu.