Afrikana, Baldwin Street: ‘Cheerful and exuberant’ – restaurant review

According to their website, socials and indeed the entryway into the restaurant, it’s #allaboutafrikana.

A bold statement and one that I was keen to assess myself following the opening of the rapidly expanding franchise’s latest branch on Baldwin Street.

With it being a chain and one that claims to serve “authentic, home-cooked African-inspired dishes”, I was more than a little apprehensive. The feeling was compounded by the compulsory pre-visit menu check which revealed enough bad puns to warrant a diagnosis of Witzelsucht.

The arrival of Afrikana has seen a face-lift of what was previously the short-lived pizza restaurant Dough, and before that Aquila. They have some top-tier neighbours, with Marmo, Pasta Ripiena, Burger Theory and Cotto just across the road, but the site itself hasn’t seen a restaurant last longer than five years yet.

Perhaps Afrikana, which felt relatively busy on a recent Tuesday evening despite its cavernous interior, could be the one to change that.

The service was energetic and good-humoured, with our waitress struggling to disguise her laughter as she read back our order. ‘Passion please’ and ‘sweet affair’ to drink (both £6.25), followed by lamb chops (£10.95), lady fingers (£5.95), ‘fried chicken is life’ (£16.95), ‘we goat your back’ (£14.95) and halloumi fries (£4.95).

We laughed too, having downed a couple of delicious glasses of smooth gavi in Cotto before heading over. Our preliminary research had revealed that Afrikana is teetotal; all the drinks on the menu are mocktails and soft drinks. The two that we tried were pleasant enough and certainly looked the part but compensated for lack of alcohol with a hefty dose of sugar syrup.

The mocktails certainly looked the part, even if they were a little on the sweet side

The lamb chops rose to the challenge of being the first dish to grace the table spectacularly. Medium rare, as requested, yet the char along the fat and bone was enough to transport you instantly from a wet November evening to the best of summer barbecues.

They were juicy, spicy, sweet and incredibly well considered, and accompanied by crunchy tempura lady fingers and squeaky halloumi fries.

As far as lamb chops go, these were exemplary

The brightly lit interior, dark walls, plush booths and fake plants were simultaneously a generous hotel lobby and the ninth hole of a Jungle Rumble crazy golf course. The interior designer has clearly got a thing for rope, which has been used liberally.

But despite it being so new, the groups gathered around Afrikana’s tables looked as relaxed and comfortable as though they’d been coming here for years.

Enough rope to rig a ship, featuring photobomb from Bristol24/7’s Miles Arnold

Afrikana is a refreshing refrain against the tide of small plates. Here, portions are applied liberally to plates.

‘Fried chicken is life’ and ‘we goat your back’ were both piled high on a mountain of rice and peas, though sadly both also joined by one of those salads where the chef has clearly got a corner of the plate to fill and is trying in vain to find something green to include.

I say in vain because both salads seemed mere moments away from giving up the ghost entirely – shrivelled and browning at the edges.

‘We goat your back’ was served with a slightly sweet flatbread which was ideal for sauce mopping

Curry goat was as tender as you’d expect and the gravy rich and comforting, if a little salty.

‘Fried chicken is life’ was succulent but did not deliver on the crunch I’d hoped for, perhaps due to the dousing in jerk sauce post-frying, which did deliver an almighty kick.

The fried chicken portion at Afrikana probably could feed you for life

A group of teenage boys next to us, still wrapped in their coats, tore their attention away from their phones to tuck into identical wraps with fries (‘my main chick’ – £9.95), giving me serious flashbacks to teenage visits to Nando’s.

Afrikana seems to me a cheerful reminder that chains are not always to be dismissed. While I’d take an independent restaurant any day, it was always going to take a business with a bit of money behind it to be able to make a go of such a big venue.

There are not vast swathes of central restaurants that serve good halal food, and even less where mocktails and soft drinks are not just an afterthought.

Afrikana strikes me as somewhere that would be just as well suited for catering for large groups and celebrations as it is Tuesday evening families and groups of teenage boys.

I suspect, if you don’t drink, want halal food and a good central place to catch up your nearest and dearest then this place has ‘goat your back’. Perhaps for those occasions it really is #allaboutafrikana.

Afrikana, 30-34 Baldwin Street, Bristol, BS1 1NR
www.afrikanakitchen.com

All photos: Meg Houghton-Gilmour

Read next: 

• COR, North Street: ‘The best new Bristol restaurant of 2022’ – restaurant review
• Loungers team to launch new ‘roadside restaurant concept’
• Pub’s cheese rolls go viral

Listen to the latest Bristol24/7 Behind the Headlines podcast: