Mombasa · Food
Checked 31 August 2026 · 3 official sources
EAT LIKE A LOCAL
Coast food is not upcountry food: this is Swahili cooking built on coconut milk, tamarind and cardamom, and most of the best of it is sold from a market stall or a counter rather than a dining room.
Mackinnon Market (Marikiti), Digo Road
The island's main produce and spice market, in the middle of the commercial streets on Digo Road. Come in the morning for fruit, dried fish, tamarind and the whole cardamom and cloves that go into pilau and biryani.
📍 Map · $
Old Town evening stalls around Government Square
Once the sun drops, carts and braziers appear in the lanes near the old harbour selling mishkaki — beef or goat skewers grilled to order — along with viazi karai, deep-fried battered potato dunked in tamarind sauce. Cash only, eaten standing up.
📍 Map · $
Blue Room, Haile Selassie Road
A long-running Mombasa institution on the island doing bhajia, samosas, pilau and biryani, with an ice-cream counter that is half the reason people go. You order at the till and sit inside in the air conditioning.
📍 Map · $
Know the Swahili plate before you order
Breakfast is mahamri (a cardamom doughnut) with mbaazi, pigeon peas in coconut milk, washed down with kahawa chungu, the bitter coffee sold from brass pots. Mombasa Island is largely Muslim, so during Ramadan many Old Town kitchens shut through the day and only open after sunset.