Angolan cooking runs on cassava, palm oil and chilli: funge with muamba de galinha, calulu de peixe seco, and mufete grilled fish on the Ilha. Three days of markets, roadside grills, colonial-era bakeries and Atlantic beach bars.
Morning fish market on the bay side of the Ilha where pirogues land corvina, garoupa, carapau and langostinos. Buy fish by the kilo and pay a stallholder to grill it. Best 07:00-11:00; cash kwanza only, no cards anywhere.
Long-running Ilha restaurant on the Avenida Murtala Mohamed with tables over the water. Order mufete: grilled corvina with palm-oil beans, boiled cassava, fried sweet plantain and raw onion salad — the Sunday dish of Luanda families.
Inland produce trade in the Kinaxixi district: sacks of fuba de bombo (cassava flour), dried palm nuts for muamba paste, gindungo chilli, dried peixe seco for calulu, and ginguba peanuts roasted on the spot by zungueira street vendors.
The bayfront promenade fills at dusk with vendors selling kissangua (fermented cornmeal drink), fresh coconut, roasted ginguba peanuts and grilled corn. A local end-of-day ritual with the Cidade Alta skyline behind you.
Portuguese bakery culture survived independence: galão coffee, pastel de nata, and Angolan cocada amarela with coconut and cinnamon. Rua Rainha Ginga and Largo do Kinaxixi hold the old counter-service pastelarias.
Order the national dish: muamba de galinha — chicken stewed in dendem palm oil with okra, garlic and gindungo, served with funge de bombo, the stiff cassava porridge eaten by hand. Angolan wines and Portuguese vinho verde by the glass.
Calulu de peixe seco is the Kimbundu slow dish: dried fish rehydrated with fresh fish, okra, sweet potato leaves, aubergine and palm oil. The working-class Sambizanga musseque cantinas cook it in volume for lunch service.
Luanda's expat-and-oil-money dining zone south of the centre: Brazilian churrasco, Portuguese seafood rice, sushi and Angolan fine dining at four to five times musseque prices. This is where deals get eaten.
Zungueiras — women carrying trays on their heads — sell the Luanda street breakfast: pão com manteiga, hard-boiled eggs with gindungo salt, bolo de banana, fried pastéis and bagged mangoes and safu plums in season.
Roadside charcoal grills fire up at midday: frango grelhado piri-piri, grilled goat espetada, pork ribs and cassava chips, wrapped in paper with a squeeze of lime. Eaten standing with a cold Cuca or Nocal beer.
Angola's brewing scene is national sport: Cuca (the oldest, since 1948), Nocal from Luanda, Eka and Ngola. Any esplanada bar on the Ilha or the Marginal serves all four ice-cold in 33cl bottles at kiosk prices.
Sunset drinking at the northern tip of the sandspit: caipirinhas with Angolan cane spirit, whisky-and-coconut, grilled prawn skewers and kizomba on the speakers as the Atlantic goes orange behind the container port.