Today on the blog, I’m sharing a small selection of African restaurants in Paris. This is a collection of such restaurants that I’ve had the chance to try out in the capital. The Parisian spots I’m presenting below are quite different from one another. And as usual, I regularly update this article based on my new experiences and discoveries!
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Table of Contents
Au Petit Bamako
This small restaurant located on Rue de Bagnolet in the 20th arrondissement has been around since 2018. You can enjoy West African cuisine there. The venue is housed in a beautiful, historically listed former butcher shop. We started with an assortment of appetizers (pastels, “aloco” plantain bananas, and fritters / €11) served with a nice, spicy sauce. Then, we tried a beef mafé with red rice (€14.90) and a chicken yassa with a lemon-onion sauce (€11.90). For dessert, we had a dégué thiakry (€5), a homemade yogurt with millet grains inside. As a drink, I recommend the homemade bissap juice (€3.50), the African drink par excellence!












Tested in 2023
Au Petit Bamako
108 Rue de Bagnolet, 75020 Paris
Open Tuesday through Sunday
Price: between €5 and €5.50 / yassa dish between €10.90 and €16.90 / mafé dish between €11.90 and €13.90 (supplement of €1 for red rice) / desserts between €3.50 and €5
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Afrik’N’Fusion
Tested in 2020
Afrik’N’Fusion
54 Rue Jeanne d’Arc, 75013 Paris
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Djaam Afro food
We tested the first branch of this chain in the 10th arrondissement of Paris in 2020, back when it was still called Afrik’N’Bowl (I had already mentioned it in my article about poke bowls). Today, it has changed its name. The restaurant offers healthy and gourmet African bowls. The idea behind the restaurant is also to showcase the nutritional qualities of African products, still little known in Europe (such as fonio, cassava, or millet couscous), and to break the stereotypes that African cuisine is always rich and not suitable for a healthy diet. On the menu: hot or cold bowls with 6 signature bowls already made, but also the possibility to create your own bowl by choosing every single ingredient!





Tested in 2020
Djaam Afro Food
187 rue du faubourg St Martin 75010 Paris
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Le Café Dapper
It is rare to find a culinary concept with such great ambition in both the plate and the sharing of what is on that plate. I was more than curious to discover the Café Dapper, the restaurant from Chef Loïc Dablé, located within the Musée Dapper, a space unfortunately too little known, dedicated to the arts (traditional and contemporary) and the cultures of sub-Saharan Africa, the Caribbean, and their diasporas, secretly nestled just a stone’s throw from the Champs-Elysées.
What dialogue would emerge from this perspective between an art venue and a restaurant focused on African gastronomy? The result (in my opinion, of course), is a contemporary interpretation of gastronomy as a vector for understanding a culture. With this in mind, Loïc Dablé and his team gently introduce the curious, through codes that are understandable to us (re-visiting the risotto, the panna cotta), to the cuisine he calls afrofusion. He lets us taste dishes influenced by his African and French origins in a tasty and accessible marriage of cultures, with attentive work on seasonal products. If you add to that an impeccable welcome, a few semi-circular tables perfect for a moment of conviviality, and a more than palpable desire to share this cuisine, you get a confidential address that I can only recommend you go and discover.







Must try:
- A butternut squash soup with a wild African spice, Pébé.
- A smoked chicken risotto with parsley-chili and chili foam (a sort of re-visitation of one of the most typical African dishes, rice with chicken).
- Scallops with Niébé (an African white bean also called black-eyed peas or cowpeas).
- A hibiscus panna cotta for dessert and a small coffee with quality chocolate pieces to finish the meal.
Another great plus is the possibility of tasting South African wines, which were a real, lovely discovery for me. I strongly recommend you try the experience!






Price:
- The d’Art d’Arts menu served only at lunch for €29 with appetizer / main or main / dessert (the tip: €24 upon presentation of the ticket for the Dapper Museum)
- The p’Art Âge brunch at €29 with a set menu (the tip: €24 upon presentation of the ticket for the Dapper Museum) on Saturday and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.
- The Sassandr’Art tasting menu at €45 (6 dishes) on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday from 7 p.m. to 11 p.m.


Tested in 2015
Café Dapper Loïc Dablé
35 bis, rue Paul Valéry 75016 ParisUpdate 01/14/2024: this restaurant unfortunately no longer exists, but you can still go visit the Dapper Foundation!
Find all my restaurant reviews in Paris below:
⇒ All my restaurant reviews in Paris
MAP OF MY FAVORITE FOOD SPOTS IN PARIS AND THE ILE-DE-FRANCE REGION
Restaurant
Bar
Pastry / Bakery
Tea Room / Coffee Shop
Brunch
Ice Cream Parlor
Photo credits: Nicolas Diolez and Mademoiselle Bon Plan Photos are not royalty-free, photographer authorization mandatory before any use
